David Rush | Discussion Combustion Podcast | #274

[00:00:00] We'll have this discussion. Discussion? What discussion? This is a discussion. Combustion. Coming to you from Denver, Colorado, this is Discussion Combustion Podcast with your hosts Kevin Batstone and Arthur Rawe.

[00:00:16] Welcome back to Discussion Combustion. It has been a while. Episode 274 coming your way. For all our Happy Friday viewers, this is an exciting one for sure because you know we've been covering the man, David Rush, breaking records. Well, he's here now. He's joining us via Zoom out of Boise. Welcome aboard, David.

[00:00:31] Hey, thanks. Great to be here.

[00:00:34] Excited to have you. Man, it's been a hell of a journey watching all of your records. We'll get a little bit into that, but also want to get to know you as just a guy as well, right? Because I'm sure that you have like, everybody's always asking you about the records.

[00:00:51] But it's like, you know, what created David Rush in the first place? What led you into pursuing all these records? And based upon what we've read in the past, was it like a rivalry with like an older brother or something?

[00:01:06] And that like sparked your motivation to get going into this stuff? Or what motivated you originally?

[00:01:12] Yeah, I was the youngest of three boys. And so my oldest brother was five years older and my brother Jonathan was one year older.

[00:01:19] And so when I was growing up, like any siblings, we'd compete against each other, whether it be academics or, you know, more, you know, playing soccer, football in the backyard or trying to tackle each other or run a foot race.

[00:01:30] I was always competing against him. And I grew up actually thinking I was one of the most athletic people in the world because I lost everything I did.

[00:01:38] Not only was I a year younger, but he was just naturally gifted physically and had more testosterone than pretty much anybody ever met.

[00:01:47] And he could grow a full beard. Like he can still grow in sixth grade, a better beard than I can grow now.

[00:01:53] And in ninth grade, he like one yearbook for best arms and he'd never lifted weights in his life.

[00:01:58] He just, and he was like the ninth grade. And he, he set the school record junior high for seventh grade, the fastest mile.

[00:02:05] He was the fastest hundred meter kid in the city. Actually got second, but my mom swears he's still that one that race.

[00:02:10] He won the city wrestling meet. Um, and that was just who I grew up with. And I always thought, Hey, I'm the worst.

[00:02:17] It wasn't until high school when we did a swimming race. And I don't know why we're racing, except we always raced whatever we did.

[00:02:24] We did a swimming race and I beat him. And it's cause I'm like three inches taller, bigger hands, bigger feet.

[00:02:28] And I'm like, I finally beat my brother. It's okay. So that was a momentous moment, especially being the youngest brother.

[00:02:35] Oh yeah. I was, I think we can all relate to that because we're all the younger brother. I have an older brother and him and I are so competitive to this day,

[00:02:40] especially when it comes to racing, like auto racing and video games, the competition's on. I love that.

[00:02:45] The older brother kind of pushes that a little bit, sets that bar, you know, what the standard is.

[00:02:49] And then on the academic side, my oldest brother, five years older, he was kind of like the standard for academics.

[00:02:54] And I remember, I remember at one point I just set my goal of what do I want to get in the SATs?

[00:02:58] And I wanted to get a 1500. It was my goal. And out of 1600 and my oldest brother whapped me like physically hit me.

[00:03:03] And I'm like, what was that for? He's like, I got a 1480 and you're just trying to beat me.

[00:03:07] And in that case, I wasn't actually trying to beat him. I just, that was just my goal.

[00:03:13] Yeah. I mean, competition, it's, it's a, it's a beautiful thing.

[00:03:16] Um, it could also be one of those things. Like if, if you didn't compete, like you thought you were,

[00:03:22] and then you quit, right? I mean, how many times have you been attempting to break a record

[00:03:27] and you felt like quitting and then you tried like once or twice more than that was the record breaker?

[00:03:33] Like how many times that has that happened for you?

[00:03:36] You know, I, I felt like quitting many times. Most of the time it's during practice. Like,

[00:03:42] is it worth all the time, energy, and effort to break this record? For example,

[00:03:46] I wanted to become the world's fastest juggler. That was one of the early records. I was thinking

[00:03:50] about doing the most juggling catches in one minute. And I've been juggling since I was eight

[00:03:54] years old. Here I am like 35 years old thinking, okay, how fast can I juggle? So I, I practiced.

[00:04:00] It was like, okay, here's my baseline speed. Spent two weeks trying to get faster.

[00:04:04] Did another time trial and I didn't improve. And then I'm like, wait a second,

[00:04:06] who am I to think that I could become the fastest juggler in the world? I am a technology

[00:04:11] professional working in tech. I've got lunches, evenings and weekends while raising a family to

[00:04:17] try to practice for this. There's just no way. And so I gave up, but then I really took this message

[00:04:22] of having grit and a growth mindset. If a growth mindset is the belief that you can get better at

[00:04:26] anything and grit is not giving up when things get hard. And if you put those two things together,

[00:04:30] amazing things could happen. And I said, no, no, I am going to become the world's fastest juggler.

[00:04:35] And then I practiced with that mindset and a funny thing started to happen. I got a little bit faster.

[00:04:40] And as I got a little bit faster, I got more hope. So I worked harder, which got me faster.

[00:04:44] And then at some point it just like, was this cascading ball rolling down the hill of snow,

[00:04:49] getting bigger and bigger. And it's like, I'm going to break this world record.

[00:04:51] And I eventually did break that world record. I got 428 catches in a minute when the previous

[00:04:55] record was 422. Now the story doesn't end there. What ended up happening? Somebody else broke my

[00:05:01] record with 502 catches in a minute. I beat it by six. They beat it by over 60. I go back and get 556.

[00:05:07] Somebody else gets 558. I currently hold this record with 586 catches in one minute. That is

[00:05:12] almost 10 catches per second. When I used to think seven was impossible.

[00:05:18] Wow. Setting that bar just a little bit higher each time now is, do you think there's someone

[00:05:23] actively trying to beat that right now and you're going to have to go back and do it again?

[00:05:27] The guy who broke it at 556 was Michael Ferrari. He's a professional juggler based out of Spain.

[00:05:33] Um, I'm not sure if he's trying to go after it. And I issued a challenge to the juggling community

[00:05:38] originally. And, uh, and he responded, broke the record. I've taken it back since he owns like 25

[00:05:43] other more complex juggling records. So that's one he might go back after. Uh, not sure, but if he does,

[00:05:49] that will give me the impetus to go after that 10 catch per second mark and get to the 600 in one

[00:05:54] minute. Wow. That's wild. That is wild. It is interesting how the brain works though,

[00:06:00] right? Because like you're talking about grit and like overcoming the self doubt and like having the

[00:06:06] motivation. Um, I've overcome a lot of things in the last five years have been the biggest growth

[00:06:11] years of my life. And it's really been surprising to me to see like how just sticking it in and,

[00:06:18] and continuing to have a self self belief. Honestly, if you have some self belief,

[00:06:25] then you can really open up any door is and, and faking it till you make it almost too. Right?

[00:06:30] Like there has to be like this, like, Oh no, I, I can be the fastest juggler. Like in a sense,

[00:06:36] like you're faking it in your head until, until you actually make it happen in reality. And so,

[00:06:41] so I love that mentality. Um, and you also do like, uh, motivational speaking as well. Right?

[00:06:48] Yeah. I worked in tech for 12 years. And during that time, I was promoting STEM education, science,

[00:06:54] technology, engineering, math, and telling students, Hey, if you set your mind to go,

[00:06:57] believe in yourself and pursue the passion, you can accomplish anything. And the problem here is

[00:07:00] working in tech in Boise, especially where we didn't have, we have a tech community, but the

[00:07:05] hardest positions to fill, fill are those that require these challenging STEM degrees. And so a

[00:07:09] student will fail at science and struggle with math and say, I can't become an engineer. So I'd go to

[00:07:13] schools and I talk about the role of grit and growth mindset, how in second grade in the Idaho public

[00:07:18] education system, I didn't get into the gifted program, but through hard work, I eventually

[00:07:22] was offered admission at MIT and now work in the technology space. But that message resonated so

[00:07:28] much, especially since I added juggling to it and made it engaging. I got invited to talk at many

[00:07:32] other schools and educators and businesses were like, Hey, come talk to my organization about this

[00:07:37] mindset, because I think it's so powerful, you know, which, which led it to be a revenue generating,

[00:07:41] um, experience. Then after Craterpoint was purchased in 2020, which ended up being the largest

[00:07:47] technology exit in Idaho's history. And I was one of the early employees there. I'm like, okay,

[00:07:51] I got some flexibility in my life. What would, if I could do anything with my time, what would it be?

[00:07:55] And then decided one is spend more time with my family. And the other is to try to spread this

[00:07:59] encouraging message to other people. So three days a week, I'm the full-time caregiver for my two-year-old

[00:08:03] daughter been doing that for a year and a half. Absolutely love it. Um, and then the other two days,

[00:08:08] plus, you know, whenever I, you know, drop her off at childcare at the Y for a couple hours,

[00:08:12] I get my workouts in. Um, and my wife is working three days a week as a mechanical engineer. The

[00:08:17] other two days I'm talking, breaking world records and trying to encourage folks.

[00:08:23] That's a lot on your plate for sure. What would you tell someone that like feels like they're

[00:08:26] being overwhelmed with, like you mentioned, you know, having to, having to be the dad,

[00:08:29] having to run around, having to get the workouts and balancing all that can feel overwhelming at

[00:08:33] times. What do you tell people that kind of, you know, have struggle balancing their,

[00:08:37] their work life and, and just managing it all? Yeah. So in 2021, I set a goal, uh, to try to

[00:08:44] break the most, or I tried to break 52 world records in 52 weeks. Um, and that's my wife going by.

[00:08:52] She's got, she's, she's taking care of the kids and, uh, grabbing the switch. My son just went to the

[00:08:57] library to get a Zelda. And so he's really excited to play. Oh, I think it's the, I think he's been

[00:09:04] playing that one, but it's a little too advanced because he's six years old. And so he's got that,

[00:09:07] there's apparently a version of it that's meant for kids. And so it's the less complex version.

[00:09:11] He just got back from the library and, uh, he was the newest one. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what

[00:09:16] he's excited to play. My wife just grabbed the switch because it's a, it's a great system. It's

[00:09:20] a great system. I frankly, if I'd have been thinking about it while he was sitting there,

[00:09:24] I would have taken it off because I thought he had to play on the TV that I'm working on right now,

[00:09:27] but he can just play on the gaming console. So silly me. So in 2021, I set this goal,

[00:09:32] we'll break a 52 world record in 52 weeks. Long story short, I was successful, but I did that

[00:09:38] while working full-time in tech, raising two young boys with my wife. Uh, we traveled and visited 51

[00:09:45] different national park service sites. I ran over 600 miles. Uh, I played 241 games of cribbage

[00:09:52] with my neighbor across the street. I won almost 50%, by the way. And I survived a, a life-threatening

[00:09:59] post appendectomy infection with a 10% mortality rate that lasted for months.

[00:10:03] Oh, wow. And you make time for what's important. And sure. I didn't watch many TV shows, cut out a

[00:10:11] lot of movies, but I spent a ton of time with my family. I worked hard at work, kicked butt there.

[00:10:16] We were very successful and I made time for the things important, the friendship with the neighbor

[00:10:20] across the street. That's how we bonded over cribbage. And, and I had this goal of breaking all the world

[00:10:24] record. So I'm practicing all the time or whenever I had the time and I'm spending as much time as I

[00:10:29] can with my young kids, trying to develop them into men of character and honor. Uh, and so you, you,

[00:10:34] you, you make time for what's important and, and it time. I mean, we all have the exact same 24 hours,

[00:10:40] but what are you spending your time doing? Yeah. I feel like a lot of people, and I'm guilty of doing

[00:10:46] this too, but like, you know, you kind of get sucked into looking at stuff on your phone and I've been,

[00:10:53] and yeah. And look, everybody, it doesn't matter what age you are. Like you're susceptible to getting

[00:10:58] addicted to the scroll. And one thing that I've noticed, like I mentioned, I've been on a really

[00:11:03] big health and like growth mentality for a while now and accountability mentality, mainly I'd like

[00:11:09] to say, you know, holding myself accountable and being honest with myself. But if I spend about an

[00:11:14] hour and a half on social media, just looking at stuff like that seems to be the point where I have

[00:11:21] this anxiety creep in to where I feel like I'm not doing enough. And, and honestly, like for everybody

[00:11:29] out there, like I've been thinking about this one today, if you're not doing anything with your life,

[00:11:33] then you're actively doing nothing, right? Like everybody's actively doing something,

[00:11:39] even if it's nothing. And I think, I think one of the secrets that's helped me and helped keep me

[00:11:46] motivated is to like, try to have little things every day that I enjoy doing that I know fills my cup.

[00:11:53] And then, you know, you just try to focus on that stuff. But I mean, I was even talking to my dad the

[00:11:59] other day about this. He's like, son, I had so much going on. I don't even know how, how I did it.

[00:12:03] And I think it's like, you don't think about it. You just do it. Like you just get up,

[00:12:07] you start handling stuff and you don't overthink it. You just create the action.

[00:12:11] Yeah. And if you've got your goals and the things that you're focused on,

[00:12:15] you have to wake up, it's like, I'm going to do this. You don't have to decide what it is.

[00:12:18] This is why Mark Zuckerberg brought Hitties every day. It was like, he doesn't want to spend the

[00:12:21] brain energy to figure out what he's going to do to get dressed. Like when I was traveling to work,

[00:12:25] when pre-COVID, I was going to bike to work. I didn't, I woke up and I'm like, I don't feel like

[00:12:29] biking. I don't want to bike, but because that was my habit, I would get on the bike and I bike to

[00:12:33] work and that's how I would help stay in shape. And we have our off days. And, and when we don't want to do it,

[00:12:38] if you're in the habit of doing it already, you just get it done.

[00:12:41] Um, and, and as Arthur Ashe would say, the famous tennis guy that Arthur Ashe stadiums

[00:12:46] named for it in New York city is, is if you want to do something, you got to start where you are,

[00:12:51] use what you have and do what you can. And, and the, one of the top predictors of happiness and

[00:12:58] fulfillment is life is focusing on the things that you can control, focus on the things that

[00:13:02] you can change. And I can break the world records that I find. I can practice them. I can break them.

[00:13:05] I can't control what all the trolls are going to say online. And they say, Hey, this is the dumbest

[00:13:11] world record. Guinness world records is going down here. It used to be respectable. Well, by the way,

[00:13:14] never did Guinness world records has always had these wacky, crazy records since it was first published

[00:13:19] in 1955. Um, but I don't let that get to me. I'm focused on here. I'm trying to be the best version

[00:13:24] of myself and I'm practicing my anti coordination. I'm trying to stay in shape. Um, and I'm breaking

[00:13:30] world records to give me a sense of satisfaction. And, and, and you can be a cynic about it.

[00:13:34] Absolutely. But you can be a cynic about who's going to catch an oblong fake leather ball in a

[00:13:39] rectangle. I mean, what does it matter? And yet millions of people tune in with billions of dollars

[00:13:43] of revenue in the line. And, and I get excited about football too, uh, as same with soccer or any

[00:13:48] sport it's about, how does it connect people? How do you get engaged in it? What, what does it make you

[00:13:53] feel? What emotions do you have, uh, which are related to watching it being invested in it, as well as the

[00:13:58] internal health benefits of participating. How do you go about, you know, kind of deciding,

[00:14:04] okay, you know, you have X amount of records at this point, too many to count, right? How do you

[00:14:09] decide, okay, what's the next one? What does that look like? How am I going to train for it? Do you

[00:14:12] kind of prioritize it? Like I'm going to work on this this week and then probably put this one over

[00:14:16] here. What does that look like a day to rush schedule? Yeah. So there's a, there's a few

[00:14:19] different types of records. There's some where, uh, the low hanging fruit, like I watch a video

[00:14:24] online and like, Hey, there's the most blindfolded pickleball serves in a minute. It's like 23.

[00:14:28] I've been playing pickleball for the last year. I'm kind of addicted to it. And I'm like,

[00:14:32] 23 seems like a really low bar. I'm just going to go out and break that one. And so I got 41

[00:14:36] in a minute and all I had to do was like two practice sessions. Uh, and then there's,

[00:14:41] you know, the physically fit ones. Like I want to stay in shape. So I'm going to practice for,

[00:14:44] you know, some running ones. I'm going to try to, you know, do the most consecutive stairs

[00:14:48] climbed while juggling. And so I have to get on the stair machine once or twice a week to prepare for

[00:14:52] that one. Cause it's going to take me a couple hours of constant climbing stairs and juggling to make

[00:14:56] that happen. How many flights of stairs can you do? Like how many stories?

[00:15:02] Oh, you're just absolutely winded. I'm just, I'm just curious. Cause I do the stairs too,

[00:15:06] sometimes. And I'm, it gets me pretty winded every time.

[00:15:08] You know what? I don't let me think. I have to think about this for a second. Um,

[00:15:14] cause when I'm doing the stairs, I'm doing about 80 a minute times an hour time. So that's 4,000

[00:15:20] stairs. I think there's eight. So that'd be about 500 stories. I think.

[00:15:23] Wow. So I'm like 250 to 500 stories in about now, now I'm not totally winded at the end of that.

[00:15:29] It depends on the pace depends on if I get winded or not. Yeah.

[00:15:34] And you're swimming. I take it too, right? You still swim.

[00:15:38] Um, I, I, I, I went on a show called Errol Mingo in Madrid a couple of weeks ago. It's,

[00:15:44] uh, the anthill and they do science stuff on it and I promote STEM education. So it was a good fit.

[00:15:48] And it was actually just coming back from the Spain's got talent semifinals. And,

[00:15:53] and I had to go back to Spain in two weeks for the show. And I told him, you know,

[00:15:55] I'm not super excited about this. I kind of want to be on their show,

[00:15:58] but it would be way more interesting if you flew my wife out as well.

[00:16:01] So they flew my wife out. Uh,

[00:16:03] we had a great time on the show and moved to Portugal for three days afterwards,

[00:16:05] just two of us, not our three kids who are two, eight and six. So lots of parent time.

[00:16:10] So we were, we traveled all over,

[00:16:12] saw the monasteries and the castles and the churches and stuff.

[00:16:15] And then we were biking along the super famous six mile path,

[00:16:18] uh, the coast of Portugal.

[00:16:20] And we happened to be biking along an Ironman that was going on right then.

[00:16:24] And I got to thinking, Hey, Boise used to have this half Ironman. Um,

[00:16:28] and so I got back, looked it up, we've got it. So I just signed up for that a couple of weeks ago.

[00:16:32] So I just started swimming again. So this afternoon I swam the 1.2 mile distance,

[00:16:36] which is the half Ironman distance.

[00:16:39] Okay. That's excellent. I'm almost a daily swimmer. I have a new goal right now where I'm,

[00:16:45] I'm day four in, I'm going to swim as many days as I can in a row. And just,

[00:16:49] I'm curious like how that will affect my body after like three months. Cause I've,

[00:16:53] I've never done it that consistently. So that's why I asked about that. Um,

[00:16:58] so you're going after, are you, are you timing yourself doing intervals?

[00:17:01] I do like 20, I do like 20 minutes, uh, some breast strokes. Um, I call it like,

[00:17:06] I have some different moves where I call it, there's probably an actual name, but I call it

[00:17:09] like the squid. Cause I'm like, cause I'm like doing this kind of stuff for like working out my arms,

[00:17:14] but either way, swimming decreases my back pain. And so that's why I like it the most. It's,

[00:17:20] it's just really good there, but it sounds like you're chasing like, so you kind of look after

[00:17:26] the low hanging fruit fruit type of things that you could quickly break. And then you have like your

[00:17:31] mindset on like two or three bigger records that you want to break throughout the year. And that's

[00:17:36] kind of how you're divvying up your energy on these things. Yeah. And then going back and defending

[00:17:41] records that I've lost. Yeah. Okay. And so how does that work with the Guinness officials? Cause I know

[00:17:47] like there's a whole process to it that I don't, I don't quite understand. I mean, somebody has to be

[00:17:50] present. Can it just be you filming it in your kitchen? Like I remember when you did the lemon juice

[00:17:53] one, which we'll get to here in a bit, you know, you had, you'd videoed it and stuff,

[00:17:56] but how do they certify it? Who overlooks it? So there's, there's a couple of different ways to

[00:18:00] go about it. One is the free route, which is I do for most of the time. You make an account at

[00:18:04] guinnessworldrecords.com. It's free to create this email address. Once you have that, then you can

[00:18:10] search their database of records and apply for a record. If you go the free route, it's up to three

[00:18:15] months to get the application approved, at which point you have an application reference number and

[00:18:19] all the rules you have to follow the specific rules. Like for that lemon juice one, you have to have it in a

[00:18:24] container with a straw of a certain size. And then you've got to have people witnessing it.

[00:18:30] So in, in most cases, you have to have at least two independent witnesses and two timers with

[00:18:35] stopwatches. And for some specific records for like distance or height, you have to have a surveyor

[00:18:41] that's qualified to survey the distance as well. And then sometimes other specific records, like for

[00:18:46] food ones, you're not a waste food. So you've got to have a proof of distribution of the food

[00:18:49] afterwards. And then you gather all that evidence, all the video evidence, the pictures,

[00:18:53] the sign statements from your witnesses, and then submit it to Guinness world records at the website,

[00:18:56] on the portal, the application, upload it all, hit submit. And then it's another three plus months

[00:19:01] before they'll approve it or reject it, which often happens, which can be very frustrating,

[00:19:06] especially on a first record. Yeah, I can imagine. Cause then you got to go back and do it all again,

[00:19:10] right? Resubmit it, wait another three months. So a lot of waiting around to get those certified

[00:19:14] because this was the year, right? You took, you officially took over the most congruent

[00:19:17] Guinness book of world records, correct? Yep. Yeah. I currently hold the most active Guinness

[00:19:22] world records titles. Congratulations. That's a fun feeling. I mean, when you got to that level,

[00:19:27] that must've been like, man, what's, this is awesome. That was pretty awesome. That was pretty

[00:19:30] awesome. And the, the moment I did, it was actually in London at Guinness world records headquarters,

[00:19:37] where, where I attempted to break 18 Guinness world records titles in one day.

[00:19:41] Uh, and so the month leading up to that, I broke no world records. I was just sequestered in the

[00:19:45] racquetball court at the YMCA practicing two hours a day for those 18 records. And then I successfully

[00:19:51] broke 15 of them in about 12 hours, uh, which was an awesome experience. And in that case,

[00:19:57] they had videographers there to capture all the video for the evidence as well as, uh, the, um,

[00:20:02] their social media channels, but they had an adjudicator on site and they could validate the record,

[00:20:07] uh, as soon as they, as soon as I did it or after they reviewed the slow motion footage.

[00:20:10] And that's the other way you can go. If you want that to happen in your home state or whatever,

[00:20:14] you have to pay them the consultancy fee to fly out the adjudicator and be there.

[00:20:19] Okay. That makes sense. See, as this was happening, uh, we're all talking on the other

[00:20:24] program on happy Friday America. We're like, you know, we believe David rush is going to do this.

[00:20:29] Like he's going to, he's going to have the most world records. We, we, I think we said a date too.

[00:20:33] Like we said, you're going to do it like right around labor day. I think was, was when we said.

[00:20:37] So we were rooting for you. And then I was all like, once he breaks these though,

[00:20:42] is he going to take his foot foot off the gas or is this man going to keep going? And I was like,

[00:20:48] nah, David rush. There's no way he's stopping here. He's going to keep moving on it. And that,

[00:20:53] that you've done that. So that was like really awesome. Awesome to see. Because sometimes I feel

[00:20:58] like when you're really pushing and you like hit those big milestones in life, like, and everybody

[00:21:04] deserves some time to relax and get rejuvenated. But too often I feel like people hit these really

[00:21:10] big goals and then they just kind of fall off and then they're not really pursuing things anymore,

[00:21:16] or maybe they didn't have a, another big goal in mind. So that's like a resilience type of mentality.

[00:21:23] Where, where have like, did you have motive, like, uh, motivational speakers that you used to

[00:21:29] listen to growing up and like, where, where'd you get some of your, uh, motivation mentalities from?

[00:21:36] So I've, I've, you know, um, read a lot of psychology and I took, you know, when I was in

[00:21:42] college at MIT, I got a little burnt out cause I was actually working too much on engineering.

[00:21:46] And so the last three semesters, I'm like, I need to take a little bit of time off. I,

[00:21:49] I accumulated more credits than I needed. And so I was like, I want to take some fun glasses.

[00:21:54] So I signed up for psychology cause my girlfriend was taking it. She's now my wife.

[00:21:57] And we're understanding how does the mind work? What, what motivates people? What do you want to

[00:22:01] do? And so when you're, when you're pursuing a goal, what's more important than actually meeting it

[00:22:08] and the excitement of winning the race or, uh, meeting your goal is the anticipation of winning

[00:22:13] the race or the anticipation of meeting the goal. And so I always like to have those out there,

[00:22:17] the big juicy targets, because I can visualize what it's going to feel like when I break that goal.

[00:22:22] And that brings more pleasure over a longer period of time. It keeps me motivated

[00:22:27] more motivated than actually breaking the goal or, or hitting, hitting my target.

[00:22:32] And so that's why I signed up for this, this half Ironman. Uh, I was doing the math afterwards

[00:22:37] and it's going to take me about six and a half hours to complete. I'm like, man, I don't know

[00:22:40] if I've done any intense exercise for six and a half hours like that. Now I've juggled for 13 hours

[00:22:44] straight and that's quite a bit of exercise, but not the same level of calorie burning. I mean,

[00:22:49] I consumed about 3000 calories over those 12 hours. I think I might need more than that during

[00:22:54] the six hours of a half Ironman. Wow. So a half Ironman, so it was a full Ironman,

[00:22:59] a 12 hours push then? It depends on who you are. Now for me, a half Ironman, see the,

[00:23:05] the 1.2 mile swim. I did that today in about 41 minutes. Uh, the biking portions, 56 miles. So I

[00:23:10] estimate that's going to take me about three and a half hours. And then the run is 13.1 miles. My,

[00:23:15] my fastest half is like an hour 37 while juggling. I'm expecting it to take more like two hours at the

[00:23:21] end of an Ironman. Okay. So you're kind of, and that's, that's awesome that you're saying

[00:23:26] and you're how, how old now that if you don't mind me asking, I turn 40 next month, less than

[00:23:34] staying after it. Now, would you say that you're going to be in the best shape of your life in

[00:23:38] your forties? Are you, are you one of these guys? Cause that's what, that's what I strive to be. I'm,

[00:23:43] I'm getting close. I'm not too far behind you. Boy, would that be nice. But I, there's been,

[00:23:47] there's been periods of my life where I was doing a lot of activity. Like I would, I would bike to

[00:23:52] work, bike home. That'd be an hour and 10 minutes. I'd run at lunch for another 40 minutes. And then

[00:23:57] I'd play, uh, adult league soccer for another hour. And that's a lot of high intensity interval training,

[00:24:04] sustained, sustained cardio. And so that was, I don't, I don't know if I'll be in that good of

[00:24:08] shape, but, uh, I want to get in better shape than I am now. And I'm always striving to do better.

[00:24:15] For sure. And you had mentioned that you use these visualization techniques as if you had

[00:24:21] already achieved a goal. Um, I kind of know that to be seeding, like putting these seeds into your

[00:24:27] mind that's in the same realm as manifestation. So do you believe in manifestation? Like that we

[00:24:34] create our own realities? Uh, I, I'm not sure I understand that definition as well. What I do

[00:24:42] understand is the psychology behind maintaining motivation. And if you do visualize the prize,

[00:24:48] you're releasing the chemical dopamine in your mind, which makes you feel good, uh, which allows

[00:24:55] you to want to do things. And so there's a science behind it in terms of manifestation. Like if you,

[00:25:01] like if you think about it and that's why it becomes true, there's a science behind it that I believe in,

[00:25:06] but not the, not the more mystical aspects of it, if that's what you mean. Okay. So you're kind of

[00:25:12] talking like, like positive affirmations and yeah, you know, creating it that way by believing

[00:25:16] it, living it actively practicing. Cause here's the, if you, if you don't believe you're going to

[00:25:21] meet a goal, how are you going to maintain the motivation and the effort and have the grit to

[00:25:26] pursue it? If you don't believe it's going to happen, there's just, it's almost impossible to

[00:25:30] maintain that motivation and pursue a goal when you're facing the challenge and you're hurting and you

[00:25:35] don't want to do it. And you don't, if you don't think you can do it, it's, it's too easy to give

[00:25:38] up. That's true. It's almost like somebody like they're not dating and they won't date because

[00:25:43] they don't think anyone would want to date them. Right. They're not even putting on the field.

[00:25:48] Yeah. I mean the game, you know, some of it is a mental game. It really is. And the older I get,

[00:25:52] the more I learned that. Right. Cause I mean, when you're 10 feet tall and bulletproof,

[00:25:55] as I called it as a kid, you just think, yeah, later, everything will be fine. Let's live like

[00:25:59] there's no tomorrow. And then the ramifications start to catch up and reality sinks in.

[00:26:02] Yeah. To that point, I will say that every negative and bad thing I've ever done in life,

[00:26:08] it caught up with me. So, so David, I used to be addicted to pit painkillers and I'm kind of making

[00:26:14] light of it right now, but definitely a serious subject. Like I've had cars repoed. I went, I sold,

[00:26:19] I was selling cars and like, I went tax exempt for like three years. I just recently finished paying

[00:26:25] off those taxes. So like we're always talking about that here. Like you, anything that you do,

[00:26:32] the effort that you give, it comes back around and same, same with like negativity. If you're just

[00:26:37] constantly being negative and, and like having this echo chamber in your mind, if I'm not good enough,

[00:26:42] or I can't do it, then you're going to reap what, what you sow there opposed to like visualizing you

[00:26:47] completing a goal. And then you eventually completing it after of course, failing multiple

[00:26:52] times and staying in it through your failure. Um, we all reap what we sow in life. And so it's

[00:27:00] interesting because I, I've always really had a fascination with our subconscious, how it repeats

[00:27:06] to our conscious mind and like how those are entangled and the intuitive network, I guess the

[00:27:12] subconscious database that they call it. And, and like the whole manifesting it's, uh, it's,

[00:27:19] it's an interest, interesting subject and someone as yourself, that's chasing all these things.

[00:27:24] Like I'm, I had, I had a feeling that some of this had to be at work.

[00:27:28] Yeah. And, and I mean, you, you definitely reap what you sow. And there's a couple of things I want

[00:27:33] to talk about this. One is, uh, if you're, if you're successful in life and most anything,

[00:27:38] it's because you put the hard work and the energy and the effort into it. And if you've built those

[00:27:42] disciplines up throughout your life, you can handle the success. If you've worked hard as an

[00:27:46] entrepreneur and made it big, made a lot of money, you can, you know what to do with that money.

[00:27:50] You know what it took to cost, you know what it costs to gain that money. And you're much more

[00:27:54] likely to make smart decisions to hold onto it. If, if you've just won the lottery or you've gone

[00:28:00] to the NFL, but don't have the discipline to understand you can't spend $3,000 a night on the

[00:28:04] tab throughout the next 30 years of your life, otherwise you're going to go bankrupt. You will.

[00:28:09] And that's why so many professional athletes that are getting these multimillion dollar checks

[00:28:14] early in their careers go bankrupt. Or so many, uh, lottery winners, the vast majority of them

[00:28:20] have gone bankrupt and their lives miserable because they didn't have to work and develop

[00:28:23] the disciplines to gain that money. They just have it. And they don't realize, okay,

[00:28:27] what taxes are going to take this? Um, and if I, you know, sure, I've got $3 million in the bank,

[00:28:31] but if you buy a million and a half dollar house, most of that is now gone. Um, and you can't

[00:28:37] act like you're rich when you are rich. Otherwise you won't be.

[00:28:41] Mm-hmm. Yeah. You can have the material things, but you gotta stay in your lane.

[00:28:45] Do you have the cash?

[00:28:46] You gotta live realistically. Right. Cause yeah. I mean, I know a lot of people like that,

[00:28:48] David, they get, they get a little bit of money and it's gone. They don't invest it properly.

[00:28:51] They buy the fancy cars. They, they live that luxury lifestyle, steaks and lobsters every night.

[00:28:56] And then they're back out on the job market two years later. So yeah, it's, it's that mental

[00:29:00] toughness of maintaining it, you know, budgeting all those things. And I guess that looks different

[00:29:04] for everybody. Right. But specifically the athletes, man, these guys are paid just an insane

[00:29:09] amount of money. And then to see that the 10 years later, well, I'm out time to start over.

[00:29:14] So the crazy thing about athletes getting paid money is that if there's any kids listening to

[00:29:18] this, um, business people get paid more, you know, the athlete salaries are published and,

[00:29:25] you know, the top ones are making what 50 million a year. Uh, and if you look at the business world,

[00:29:31] there's way, way, way more jobs in tech and the average, you know, engineer is going to make,

[00:29:36] I don't know, 150, $200,000 a year right now, middle of the pack that they can earn through

[00:29:40] the rear. But the top ones in management, those big companies that earn at five, 10, 15, 20 million

[00:29:46] a year, those top CEOs that are earning hundreds of millions of dollars per year, uh, compared with

[00:29:51] like the top, you know, Patrick Mahomes making 50 million a year, the business people at the very

[00:29:56] top of their discipline are making the most money. And I want you to understand that Felicity

[00:29:59] is the business people to make money. So go into engineering, work hard, do your best.

[00:30:05] All right. That was a great moment. I'm glad we got that on camera.

[00:30:09] It's true. I mean, it's true. Great, great advice. I mean, one of the, one of the things we

[00:30:12] always ask on this program, I think he pretty much just nailed it. You know, our, our one piece

[00:30:15] of advice to humanity would be, I think Dave just nailed it, but probably has a couple more for us.

[00:30:23] So do we think that NFL is like WWE and is like scripted? That's been a big conversation.

[00:30:32] Do we think, do we think that's true or not? Like our sports scripted?

[00:30:39] I don't know if I can take that question seriously. Is it? Do we think we're on the moon? I mean,

[00:30:44] no, they're not scripted. There's no way there. Conspiracy theories are

[00:30:51] prevalent among less educated folks. And that is on the conspiracy theory level. And I'm not,

[00:30:56] I don't really want to go there. The earth is not flat. We definitely landed on the moon

[00:30:59] and sports are not three with those ones. Now in this case, I mean, there can be corruption in

[00:31:05] sports. There could be individual athletes that are trying to throw a game. Absolutely. We know that

[00:31:08] happens, but in terms of NFL rips, uh, refs scripting the NFL to make sure that Kansas City

[00:31:13] chiefs are undefeated. No, that's not happening. Okay. You heard it. You heard it from David rush

[00:31:19] himself. Yeah. And I believe that too. I mean, I'm a huge football fan and I don't want to sit

[00:31:23] there and think that my, you know, my new, I'm a big New England Patriots guy. There's no way that

[00:31:26] those six Superbowls that we got were scripted. I don't want to believe that, you know? Yeah. But

[00:31:31] people will tell me they were. Yeah. I went to school in Boston in 2003 to 2007. So I was there in the

[00:31:39] first three Superbowls. And so I was a big Patriots fan myself. Oh, great years, Dave. I

[00:31:45] was so fantastic living those Tom Brady years. It was just so much fun, just so much fun. And I'm

[00:31:49] still with them. I mean, we only have three wins on the season, but I'm still a Pat's fan. I always

[00:31:52] will be my wife's Kansas city. So fortunately I've been able to ride that. Yeah, definitely. Right.

[00:32:01] You know, until it's gone. Cause Patrick Mahomes, I mean, there's going to be at least another good

[00:32:04] 10 years of Superbowl contending Kansas city chiefs. I mean, just once in my life, because the

[00:32:08] giants took it away from the Patriots, I would like to just see one team go undefeated and

[00:32:14] win the Superbowl with an undefeated season. I think that would be awesome to say, even

[00:32:18] though I'm from Colorado, I would be glad to see Casey do it. And that way I could see one

[00:32:22] team do it in my lifetime. I think that'd be cool. Yeah. I was telling my wife that just

[00:32:25] this week about the 72 dolphins and clack, they're going to have to wait another week to break

[00:32:29] out their champagne. And she's like, what are you talking about? Like, well, as soon as the

[00:32:32] last team loses our last undefeated team loses, they break out the champagne and celebrate

[00:32:37] those 72 dolphins. That's true. Yeah. They were rooting for Denver on Sunday. I don't

[00:32:41] know if you caught the end of that game, Dave, where they blew the field goal there, the Denver

[00:32:45] Broncos against Casey. That was a heartbreak. I'm not a Denver Broncos fan, but boy, I could

[00:32:48] feel the energy leave the room immediately. Oh yeah. They slapped that down. There was a

[00:32:52] lot of energy in my living room. My six and eight year old were screaming for sure. So,

[00:32:57] um, awesome to have you on. We love watching what you're doing. It's, it's great to get

[00:33:04] to know you better on a, on like a personal level and to all those haters out there, all

[00:33:09] those naysayers that are, you know, making this, this little bit of noise, like allow them

[00:33:15] to do that. And, and I love, I love your attitude about that too. Cause you know, they're going

[00:33:19] to make the noise regardless. They're just focusing their energy on you today because you're doing

[00:33:24] more than they are. I think that's why people get upset is cause like, they aren't doing enough

[00:33:29] with their own life. So then they sit here and judge others. Right. Keyword warriors.

[00:33:33] And then this is, I'll go ahead and go a little deeper. This I talk about focus on what you can

[00:33:37] control. You can control your health. You control what you're doing. I can't control the haters.

[00:33:40] Um, and then in terms of, uh, in terms of like the political environment, we just had presidential

[00:33:45] elections, frankly, on a presidential level, that's going to affect your life way, way less

[00:33:50] than the local election. You may not be able to affect the presidential election, but if you get

[00:33:54] involved in your community or local legislators and your school district and your library board,

[00:33:58] you can make an actual difference in your community and the library going in next door or the local

[00:34:04] legislator that changes the housing policies in your neighborhood is going to affect your life way,

[00:34:08] way more than a president will. And so focus on what you control and don't worry about the president

[00:34:14] election other than, you know, vote in the small amount way you can, but focus on what you control.

[00:34:19] Because if those people are just watching the TV, watching CNN, Fox news, whatever's hurdling insults,

[00:34:23] they feel powerless. And frankly, you kind of are powerless on that national level.

[00:34:28] But if you focus on the things you control, you feel way more empowered and you can do more

[00:34:32] with your life and feel more successful.

[00:34:35] Yeah. I think that's the best advice I've heard throughout the selection process, right?

[00:34:38] Cause everyone does get caught up in the noise and you know, the dog and pony show. It really is

[00:34:41] the local stuff is what we control impacts our lives the most, you know, our communities,

[00:34:46] our schools, all that stuff's great advice. Dave, I agree with you there.

[00:34:48] Mm-hmm.

[00:34:50] So if, if you could give one piece of advice, and this is a question that we like to ask often on this

[00:34:54] program, one piece of advice, let's say the whole world hears a tomorrow, one piece of advice out

[00:35:01] better all of humanity. What would that be for you? It's, it's the thing I've been trying to teach my,

[00:35:10] my six and eight year old boys, be kind to one another. And when you're looking at other people,

[00:35:17] always assume the best of intent. This works in business as well. You can have the perspective

[00:35:23] of this person insulted me. They hurt me. They are trying to sabotage my project. They did something

[00:35:27] they weren't supposed to. They, you know, bumped into me. And if you assume they've done that on

[00:35:31] purpose, if you're assumed they're being mean, you assume they're trying to undercut your career.

[00:35:35] It's just, it creates a huge amount of negativity. The honest truth is people as an individual think

[00:35:43] other people are thinking about them way, way, way more often than they are.

[00:35:47] Frankly, most of us are so self-divore, but we're not so focused on other people around us. And other

[00:35:51] people aren't thinking about us 24 seven. They're not trying to sabotage us. They're trying to hurt us.

[00:35:55] They probably bumped into you on accident because they weren't paying attention or maybe they're

[00:35:59] trying to under shoe or they're focused on something else. Or, you know, they could have been

[00:36:01] had a bad day and they're bumped into you because their grandmother died. Not because they dislike you.

[00:36:06] If you assume positive intent, you're going to go through life and be kinder to other people.

[00:36:12] And they're going to be kinder back and the world becomes a better place and you get along better.

[00:36:16] And you're not so upset, hurling insults. And so if you get to know people on a one-to-one basis,

[00:36:21] assume positive intent, your life is going to be way, way, way more enjoyable.

[00:36:29] I agree with that. So I've always had this like little mentality where there's two parallel lines

[00:36:35] that run until death from the beginning of our life till death. And one of those lines is negative.

[00:36:40] And one of those lines is positive. And it's literally a choice. Like the positive is always

[00:36:46] there. The negative is always there. They're both consistent and will always be. But as, as,

[00:36:51] as human beings, as conscious entities, we have a choice on where we actually want to focus that

[00:36:57] energy. And I feel like that ties it, like that kind of ties into what you're saying there is

[00:37:01] it's like a choice to, to treat people kind. It's a choice to be selfless. And it's a beautiful life

[00:37:08] there too, because when you're doing good into the world, you are experiencing more good and you're

[00:37:13] seeing more good. Um, and, and then that just echoes it, it like repeats itself.

[00:37:20] Yeah. Great. Yeah. Great advice. Great way to wrap it up. I just got to ask record breaker rush.

[00:37:25] One last fan question here, I guess what's in the works day. What's coming next? What's this next

[00:37:29] record you're chasing? If you can talk about it, you know, the, one of the most recent ones I broke was

[00:37:34] actually the longest time to balance ladder on my chin. Um, and I, I, I, I've broken that one three

[00:37:41] times. Now the first time was like five minutes, then 11 minutes. Somebody else had 17. I just went

[00:37:45] 19 minutes. The problem is it made my lower back breeze up a little bit, went out and played

[00:37:50] pickleball the next year and I injured my back. And so you talk about swimming's easy on the back.

[00:37:54] That's why I'm out there swimming today. Cause I've, I've got several other balancing on my chin

[00:37:58] records, like a chair, a skateboard. And one of the ways I practice is I try to group records together.

[00:38:04] So I practice one skill and can reuse it. And so I'm trying to get my back in good enough shape.

[00:38:08] I can break these other three records. Um, and then that, you know, the long-term ones are the

[00:38:13] climbing the stairs or the stairs while juggling. Um, and then some short-term ones, the fast ones,

[00:38:18] I'm trying to stack a toilet paper rolls into a pyramid as fast as possible. One of those quick

[00:38:23] ones. Good stuff to look forward to. We'll be covering it on happy Friday for sure. All right.

[00:38:29] Sounds good. Yeah. Thanks for being here today. Appreciate you taking some time out. Um,

[00:38:33] great conversation. Appreciate your time. Yeah. Enjoy your evening. Keep it up. Keep inspiring

[00:38:38] people, everybody out there that's listening to this. You heard it from Mr. Rush himself.

[00:38:42] You keep that mentality to stay motivated. You keep the grit alive and you can accomplish things

[00:38:48] as long as you believe in yourself, David pleasure talking to you. And we wish you the very best

[00:38:53] until next time. All right. Thanks so much. Come on.

[00:38:56] Thank you.