0:00

Here

0:00

we go with episode number 353, the way I heard it.

0:03

It's called,

0:04

I Never Got to Drive the Zamboni with

0:06

our good friend Scott Hamilton. Because

0:09

Chuck, I don't know, maybe I'm taking liberties, maybe

0:11

I'm overreaching, but I now think we can call Scott

0:13

Hamilton our good friend. I

0:15

think everybody that meets Scott Hamilton feels

0:18

like a good friend. Yes.

0:20

Scott Hamilton just exudes a confidence

0:22

and a welcoming nature

0:24

from the man who's driving the Zamboni.

0:27

He's a man of confidence and a welcoming nature. From

0:31

the minute he signed on to the minute he said goodbye, he

0:34

was a delight to be around. And

0:37

he shines. He pops. His little bald head

0:39

exudes something that is joyful. He's

0:43

full of joy, this man. He is a joyful dude. And

0:46

really, this comes out in our

0:48

conversation. Guys like him, people like

0:50

him, are really part

0:52

of the reason I wanted to do this podcast, or at least change

0:55

the format a couple years ago. I was in Nashville.

0:58

And I was talking to a group of people that

1:00

I want to talk to.

1:01

And I found myself sitting across from Scott

1:04

about, I don't know, maybe five,

1:06

six months ago, at Dave Ramsey's house down in Nashville,

1:10

just outside of town. And

1:12

it was just one of those dinners, you don't think

1:14

you're going to have that kind

1:15

of dinner. I didn't even know Scott was coming. I just

1:18

thought it was half a dozen of us. And

1:20

Dave was like, oh, I'm going to invite some

1:22

neighbors over. Well, his neighbors are Scott and Tracy.

1:25

I had questions, but

1:26

he had questions. Like, he went

1:29

to school on my ridiculous career.

1:31

And he had so much to say about microworks

1:33

and about dirty jobs. And

1:36

it was just a really fun conversation. And I said

1:38

to Mary, if we had cameras here,

1:40

or like microphones, that would have been a great podcast.

1:42

And she's like, hey, dummy, you have microphones.

1:45

Why don't you just invite him on your podcast and do that?

1:49

So that's what's happening today. We're going to

1:51

talk about everything from his Olympic

1:53

triumphs to the singular joy

1:56

of falling flat

1:56

on your face or your back. Five.

2:00

times in three minutes, which is some

2:02

kind of record. That's a lot. That's

2:04

a lot. I don't think he'd disagree with the

2:06

statement that he learned more

2:09

about failure from figure skating

2:11

than success. Absolutely.

2:14

And it's not just figure skating. We talk about it also

2:16

talk about, you know, his bouts with

2:18

cancer and cancer in his family

2:21

and, uh, you know, his foundation that's

2:23

fighting cancer. He's a guy who

2:25

survived a lot of things. What did he say

2:27

one time? He said, I made testicular cancer

2:29

look cool before Lance

2:32

Armstrong. No,

2:34

he's had a front row seat to some

2:36

things that most of us can really just dream

2:39

about on a competitive level. And

2:41

then a whole list of things most

2:43

of us would dream about in the form

2:45

of a nightmare on a health

2:48

level. And he's persevered. Anyhow,

2:51

you're going to like him. It's impossible not to

2:53

like this guy. He's a national treasure.

2:56

Chuck. That's what he is. Absolutely.

2:59

He's Scott Hamilton. And, uh, among

3:01

his regrets or the fact that he never got

3:04

to drive the Zamboni. We'll

3:06

find out right after this. If

3:13

Newton Minow was right and he was,

3:16

and TV really is a vast wasteland

3:19

and it is what's tick tock, a

3:21

solar system of sludge. What's

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YouTube, a galaxy of garbage,

3:26

maybe. There are endless

3:29

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3:31

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3:33

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3:35

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do that than by signing up for a free

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slash mic.

5:02

Ask Max if he can come over here in San

5:04

Francisco to just do some adjustment. Yeah, I might

5:06

need your help in San Francisco, Max. If

5:09

it's not too much. I would absolutely

5:11

love that. Careful

5:14

you wish for one. Do you pay for my

5:16

stuff though? That's the question. It

5:18

comes to your price. Absolutely. Everything

5:20

does. Yeah. Well listen

5:23

then first order business Scott. Yes.

5:27

It's so hard to know when to begin and where

5:29

to end but I do think the fitting way to begin

5:32

this is to dedicate the episode however

5:34

it turns out to Max Hamilton, your 15

5:37

year old son without whom we'd

5:41

be engaged in some form of sign language

5:43

or boogie. So thank you Max

5:45

for making the microphones work. Give you a big

5:48

old thumbs up. You're good to go. I

5:50

don't think hero is too strong a word to use.

5:52

Definitely not. And it's funny because I'm

5:55

of that age where we're just sort of immigrants

5:57

to the digital world and he's... so

6:00

native. When he was two

6:02

years old, I'm doing the Olympics in Vancouver.

6:05

He

6:05

goes, FaceTime, Daddy, FaceTime. My

6:08

wife's aunt was looking after him and she

6:10

said, Oh, Max, I'm so sorry,

6:12

honey. I don't know how to do that.

6:14

Okay. He's two years old. I said,

6:16

no, let it just get out of the way. Let him do it. He

6:18

turned the computer on. He

6:20

launched the application and he initiated

6:23

the chat. Get out of the way.

6:28

And because all I can

6:30

do is screw him up at this point. Let me

6:32

ask you something about this. As

6:35

a guy who became

6:37

highly skilled in a very

6:39

specific discipline, do you

6:42

think it's possible that you became

6:44

willfully ignorant of

6:47

so many other things as a result?

6:50

I like toys. I like toys just

6:52

like every other guy. I want toys and these are

6:54

great fun toys and they're

6:57

tools and toys, but it's funny. I'm computer

6:59

savvy, but when it comes to all this

7:02

hooking up a sound board and having

7:04

like a dedicated mic, like I'm not

7:06

there yet. I can use other people's

7:09

stuff. You're like 64 years old, right?

7:12

I'm 65, Medicare. Help

7:18

insurance. But

7:20

look, let me make this point. I'm right behind

7:23

you and I don't want to

7:25

abdicate. I don't want to be one of those

7:27

guys who just says, ah, you know what? I'm too

7:29

old to learn this new thing, but

7:32

I can feel it, man. I feel it

7:34

every day tugging at me.

7:36

Just let somebody else figure it out.

7:39

Let somebody else make the connection. Let somebody

7:41

else find the cable so I can

7:43

work on the thing, A, that

7:45

I think I'm good at and B, that

7:48

I like. Is that a thing you

7:50

have to fight against? Well, I think it's bandwidth,

7:53

right? I mean, how much bandwidth do we have?

7:56

When you get into like all of that, like

7:58

I didn't really drive this in.

7:59

boning

8:01

but I skated on the ice, right? I

8:04

never really edited my own

8:06

music but I skated to it. I

8:08

didn't really ever, you know, I didn't

8:10

do my own choreography but it was

8:12

good choreography and

8:14

I didn't really make my own skating outfits,

8:17

right? Because that would have been... That would have been weird. That

8:19

would have been way over the line. So, you

8:21

know, but I still wore them. You know, it's

8:23

okay not to do everything.

8:26

It really is. That's my story and I'm

8:28

sticking to it. Well, the

8:30

extent of my prep for this conversation

8:33

came really in two steps. The first

8:35

one was completely serendipitous. We met

8:37

apropos of nothing at dinner

8:40

about four or five months ago at our mutual

8:42

friend's home, Dave Ramsey. When

8:45

I left, I said to my business partner, Mary, I

8:47

said, you know what? The only thing wrong with that dinner is

8:49

I didn't have a chance to talk more with Scott

8:52

and Tracy. You guys, such an interesting

8:54

story that I just wanted to get into it. Not

8:56

that that qualifies or constitutes prep

8:59

but that's partly why you're here. The

9:01

other reason is that I

9:03

just watched you after that dinner do

9:05

a backflip on the interwebs and then

9:07

I just watched it again here. So clearly,

9:10

you're not really homo sapien.

9:12

You're not really from this planet. There's

9:15

a lot to jump into but mostly,

9:17

as Chuck will tell you, the dirty little secret of this

9:20

podcast is to find a way to get paid

9:22

to talk to people I wanted to talk to anyway.

9:24

Anyway, you are. Well, hopefully,

9:28

it'll go well. I thought dinner

9:30

was amazing. I just love listening to your stories

9:33

and just how you built your

9:35

life and it really is hilarious

9:37

that we just think we're going one direction

9:39

and all of a sudden, it's like, oh, how did I

9:42

get here? It's so

9:44

tempting though, right, to get to a certain

9:46

age and look back and for

9:48

me anyway, to resist the temptation

9:51

to tell you how I did it, whatever

9:54

it is, like this idea that

9:57

there was some master plan. Your

9:59

life... from an outside observer anyway,

10:01

is even more convoluted from a

10:03

gold medal to this crazy odyssey

10:06

you've been on with your health, your

10:09

journey and faith, everything. When

10:11

did you realize or have you yet that

10:14

the plan, if there is one, is

10:17

not yours? Early very early on.

10:19

Yeah, it comes down to that whole you're

10:22

always kind of trying to figure out how you fit in with

10:24

the rest of the world and especially when

10:26

you're a kid and when you're the smallest

10:28

kid in your class and you

10:31

just spent four years mostly in and

10:33

out of hospitals, you really don't know

10:35

how and where you fit in. And

10:37

then by a really

10:40

odd set of circumstances, the Bowling

10:42

Green State University built an ice skating

10:45

rink and to give my parents one morning, half

10:47

a week where they could sort of recharge

10:49

their batteries and sort of pour

10:52

into their own kind of mental health. I mean, four

10:54

year journey of hospitals with

10:56

your first adopted son, it had

10:59

to be horrific for them. There's

11:01

no answers at the end of it. So our

11:04

family physician said they needed a morning off.

11:06

He came up with a way for them to do that. I

11:08

went to the rink and it was there that

11:10

I kind of go, oh, I can

11:12

do this. This is equal ground. I'm

11:15

always the last one picked for all the kickball

11:18

or whatever, front yard

11:20

football, always the last one chosen

11:22

because I was always the smallest of the weakest one. But

11:25

then I get on the ice and it's like, okay,

11:28

I can do this as well as the well kids. And

11:30

then I realize, oh, I can do this as well as the

11:32

best athletes in my grade. I'm

11:36

a rink rat now. I'm not going anywhere else. I'm

11:38

going to be right here. And

11:41

it was my first taste of self-esteem. And

11:43

so I just wanted more and more of that. So I was

11:45

nine. So at nine,

11:48

you're starting to kind of transition out of

11:50

your sort of totally innocent days

11:55

into kind of being more self-aware. I

11:57

got a lot of teasing from all the hockey.

11:59

players. Back then there wasn't glass

12:02

around the rings, it was chain link fence. So

12:05

yeah, it was a little bit

12:07

horrific, just all the teasing and everything.

12:09

And so I played hockey for three years as

12:12

an answer to their teasing because I knew I could skate better

12:14

than all of them. It was three years but it

12:16

was two neck braces. So I realized by the

12:18

time I was 12 that it was time

12:21

to yeah, not do that anymore.

12:23

And so when you start the marking time

12:25

in neck braces, you know that you've entered into

12:28

a slightly different world. But the cool

12:30

thing was I was 12 and now they

12:32

realize that I had more access to girls than

12:34

they ever would. And so they

12:36

kept going, hey, hey,

12:39

there's a competition this weekend. I go, there

12:41

is? And I go, are those girls from Cleveland

12:43

coming in? I go, they are. Can you

12:45

introduce me? So

12:48

now I went from being twinkle toes

12:50

to being like, you know, match.com.

12:53

It was hilarious that, you know, it just

12:56

everything just sort of changes. If

12:58

you just pick, you know, stick with something long enough,

13:00

it'll evolve into something completely different.

13:02

And so, you know, skating went from being,

13:05

you know, I was sort of teased and

13:07

then I wasn't teased anymore, but I wasn't

13:09

very good and I would do okay regionally,

13:12

sexually, I was average, nationally, I was

13:14

a disaster. And it just,

13:16

you had to work, I had to figure that out. And,

13:19

you know, falling five times in front of 17,500 people

13:21

my first year at nationals

13:24

was probably not something

13:27

that would make me think that I was ever going to

13:29

do anything in the sport.

13:30

But you just shake it off and try

13:33

it again. And that was five times in one

13:35

routine, right? Yeah, three minutes, three

13:37

minutes. Yeah, it's hard to get up at

13:40

many times in three minutes. So

13:44

I was kind of like, you know, it was like that

13:47

loser hair. Yeah,

13:50

yeah, I was kind of had that rep. It was funny

13:52

because right after that competition,

13:54

the men's champion on the

13:56

senior level that year as a guy named Gordon McKellen,

13:58

we all kind of idolized Gordon McKellen.

13:59

He was really cool and and you

14:02

know all the girls swooned over him and we

14:04

just thought Gordy was awesome He won his first Nationals

14:06

and so a bunch of us You know 14

14:09

15 year old guys are at this after party to celebrate

14:11

Gordy's victory and one of the guys I

14:14

was with leaned over and he said hey go

14:16

grab me a beer from that table And I

14:18

just said it's right

14:20

there Get

14:21

it yourself and he goes no no no I

14:23

have something to lose you don't So

14:26

I was like okay, so that's who

14:28

I am now okay Let's

14:33

rise above this too so in anything

14:35

you know you've got to fail in order to learn

14:37

you've got to fail in order to Kind of got

14:40

to understand what resilience is and

14:42

somehow you grow stronger So I

14:44

grew really strong in those years because

14:46

I was coming in last and falling a

14:49

lot in front of a lot of people I

14:51

want to just yeah spend a another

14:53

minute or two on that if I could because when

14:55

you fall five times in three minutes And

14:58

you don't know when you start that you're going

15:00

to fall at all You know walk

15:02

me through the different emotions Because

15:05

I know there are probably various shades

15:08

of horror you fall once and

15:10

you probably think ah you know what I can recover I

15:13

can make them forget that But

15:15

then what happens two three four and

15:17

do you get to the point where you're like well look that

15:19

was number five It's conceivable. I

15:21

could fall I guess five more times The

15:27

problem it was really

15:28

funny because in skating if you fall

15:30

once you're kind of like well now you're out of the medals

15:32

You know because the guys that are gonna win the medals

15:35

are gonna skate clean, and they go okay I'm

15:37

not gonna do that and then the second

15:39

time it's like ooh This is really a disaster and you

15:41

can hear the crowd going oh You

15:43

see that particular night was unique

15:45

as well because Janet Lynn Who

15:47

was the most popular woman athlete in the world

15:50

at that time was competing in

15:52

her final US Nationals? And

15:54

they put my event the novice boys

15:56

event as the event right before

15:58

the senior ladies

15:59

championship where there was standing room only tickets

16:02

because everybody wanted to be in the building for her last

16:04

nationals. So they weren't there to see us.

16:06

They were there to see Janet and it

16:08

was beyond capacity. So when

16:11

you hear the echoing, oh,

16:15

and then you fall again, it's like,

16:17

oh, and then the O's like, about fall

16:20

three, the O goes to, oh,

16:24

and then the fourth, oh,

16:28

and then the last one

16:30

is, you can do this. They go from

16:33

feeling sorry for you to rooting

16:35

for you at the end. And then I couldn't

16:38

feel my legs because I've never seen that many people in

16:40

my life. So I was scared out of my mind. And

16:42

I got off the ice. And my coach said I got nothing.

16:44

You've never even done that in practice.

16:46

There's nothing I can say to you right now,

16:49

except we'll just try

16:51

to figure out what's next. You know, I'm

16:53

like, devastated. My mom's hugging

16:55

me, you know, I never

16:57

want to stay in front of people again, ever.

17:00

And then you Yeah, but I

17:02

did. Yeah. And then I came

17:04

in ninth the next year novice, but I only

17:07

fell twice. And then the

17:08

next year, I was seventh and junior,

17:11

I beat two guys who are humiliated

17:13

that Hamilton beat him. And then the

17:15

next year, well, I was that was going to be

17:17

my last year in skating, because my mom was diagnosed with

17:19

cancer. She said we

17:22

have one year left. So I said, Okay, I'm,

17:24

you know, I'm not really crushing it in the sport.

17:26

You know, no future for me in this anyway,

17:29

I'm on the junior level, and I'm toward

17:31

the bottom. So she goes, we'll get you through one

17:33

more year. And you'll graduate high school

17:35

this year. And then next year, you can go to college

17:38

here, because it's free for us. Since we're both professors,

17:40

we can afford that. So

17:43

I

17:44

went back to my training center, my coach

17:46

had retired and a new coach came in and he

17:48

scared me to death. He was he

17:50

was a very disciplinary type of coach.

17:52

And he was just mean.

17:55

And he was a great coach. And we

17:57

became was really his name was

17:59

Evie. He's actually Nancy Kerrigan's coach,

18:02

but he scared me to death. We actually became

18:04

really good friends later on, but

18:07

that year he just sort of put me to the paces.

18:09

I was so scared of him, I just submitted. I'll

18:12

do whatever you want me to do. It was funny, right

18:14

before the Nationals, I landed my very first

18:16

triple ever. It was a triple Salchow.

18:19

I landed it and I was jumping up and down. I was

18:21

just finally, it's like bucket list. I had a triple

18:24

in my last year of skating. Woo woo! This

18:27

is at Sectionals. He called me over and he

18:29

goes, don't ever

18:29

do that again. It's like, what? He

18:32

goes, don't celebrate. You want your competitors

18:34

to think you do that all the time. It's like,

18:36

okay. I'm like, okay. All

18:38

right, I won't do that again. I'm going out for

18:40

my program at the Nationals

18:43

now. It's in Colorado Springs. My mom's

18:45

in the corner of the rink and she's got

18:47

a sling on because they removed her left breast

18:49

and the inside of her left arm and she's wearing a wig because

18:51

the chemo took all her hair. She had

18:53

this big smile on her face. I

18:56

go out to do my warm up for my long program

18:58

and Evie grabs the back of my pants and he pulls

19:00

me off the ice and he goes, don't warm up your triple

19:02

Salchow. I was like, why? He

19:05

goes, because we don't want to know if it's there or not. We

19:07

just don't want to know. I go, okay.

19:09

I did more good coaching,

19:11

I guess. We don't want to know if the jump

19:13

is there or not. We'll just do it in the program. That's

19:16

good coaching. I go around and

19:18

I land on the job. Then I go

19:20

around for my triple Salchow and

19:23

I just remembered thinking, well, this is my

19:25

last competition ever. Might

19:27

as well throw it. I threw this triple Salchow

19:30

and normally

19:31

my view on the landing

19:33

of the hardest jump in my program at Nationals

19:36

was of the ceiling because I'm laying

19:38

flat on my back. This

19:40

particular time I

19:42

was looking right in the audience and I was like,

19:44

I landed on my triple Salchow. I

19:47

got so excited. I forgot to screw up the

19:49

rest of my program and I won Junior

19:51

Nationals. There was a bunch

19:53

of guys that were very like, what just

19:55

happened? This

19:58

can't be happening. and win

20:01

nationals. So I won juniors and

20:03

then...

20:04

What did your mom do Scott? She was

20:06

really happy. And it was my last competition

20:09

ever. We know that's not true but it was

20:11

my last competition ever and she was so happy all

20:13

week and I just thought she was on massive

20:15

medication. I just how's this

20:17

woman even standing up after everything

20:20

she's been through but what I didn't know was on

20:22

her way to nationals she connected

20:25

in Chicago and met

20:28

a couple who were very wealthy, loved skating

20:31

and heard about me and

20:34

wanted to take over the... they

20:36

wanted to sponsor me. And so

20:38

she knew it wasn't my last competition but she didn't

20:40

tell me until after it was over. This

20:42

couple invested in me when I was still really

20:45

ranked at the bottom. Like there was... I was

20:47

not anything at that point. Why?

20:50

Because they just... Why did they bet on you? It

20:53

wasn't a bet. It was more like they'd

20:56

heard that my family was a good

20:58

family. My parents were both school

21:01

teachers and hardworking and pouring into

21:03

others and they just like

21:05

to use their wealth

21:08

for good. And they realized

21:10

that I probably had potential but I

21:12

hadn't touched it yet. And

21:15

they just said, hey we'd love to get behind a

21:18

skating and see where it takes him. And so they

21:20

stepped in and that first year on

21:22

the senior level I

21:25

was a disaster. I was 18. I

21:27

was in my very first apartment, you

21:30

know, kind of living in an apartment on my own which

21:32

I had no capacity to pull that off. And then

21:34

I'm sponsored completely. So like

21:38

it was just a mess. And then I went to

21:40

nationals that year and I went right back to my old

21:42

ways. I came in ninth, you know.

21:45

It was the last competition

21:48

my mom ever saw me skate in. And

21:50

it was May. That competition

21:53

was in January. It was in May. I'm sleeping

21:55

on the couch in our family room because we had a lot of people there

21:57

to support us. I was in a room to about 3.30 in the morning.

22:00

morning. And then my brother and I

22:02

woke me up and just said, your mom's gone.

22:04

And I thought

22:06

all I could say was I know. And I don't even know

22:08

why I responded that way. I just felt that she was no

22:11

longer with us. And so I went for a walk. And

22:13

in that walk, I just decided that I was going to

22:15

be who she always dreamed

22:18

I could be. I wasn't going to be this loser anymore.

22:20

And so I just I got obsessed, man.

22:22

I just I showed up to the rink early.

22:25

I was I did long prior run throughs in the summer

22:27

and altitude. I was just on fire

22:29

just to honor you.

22:32

I was 19. And

22:34

from then on, I was on the podium. I

22:37

went well that year I was on the podium. I

22:39

went from ninth to third the next year at Nationals.

22:41

And I made it to Worlds where I came

22:44

in 11th. And then I didn't

22:47

make it the next year because I was injured most of the

22:49

year had a great Nationals, but

22:51

I didn't. I got

22:53

behind and then my coach I could sense

22:56

had given up on me a little bit. And so

22:58

he put his attention elsewhere. And so another

23:00

coach came in and said, Hey, if

23:03

you want to come take for me, okay, I

23:05

asked my sponsors I

23:07

go if I moved to Philadelphia, I will still

23:10

be behind me. And they said, of course.

23:12

So I moved to Philadelphia. And I took

23:14

from this guy who'd never had a national competitor

23:16

like that before. And he was well

23:19

respected, but he just didn't have that pedigree

23:22

that my coach, you know, kind of got me the

23:24

sponsor had. And I

23:27

made it to the Olympics in 1980 and saw

23:29

the fun things that happened there. And I thought

23:31

if I came in eighth, that would be like when

23:33

in the lottery and I came in fifth. And

23:36

then I went to Worlds and came in fifth, which

23:38

is I was the third guy in a three man US team,

23:41

I had no chance of meddling. So fifth

23:43

was amazing. And then

23:47

I woke up one morning that spring and I realized

23:49

that the top three guys had all retired

23:51

from competitive skating. So all I had to do is

23:53

wake up and I'm ranked second in the world. And

23:56

it was like, what do I need to do to be number

23:59

one? And That was get better.

24:01

Wait, wait, wait

24:02

before you tell me that I just want

24:04

to go back for a second So I better

24:06

understand the role of a sponsor in

24:09

your world In those

24:11

days, what kind of dollars are

24:13

we talking about? So

24:19

I've spent the last 20 years Celebrating

24:21

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24:24

I want to give a shout out to all those people whose

24:27

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24:30

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24:34

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24:37

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24:39

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24:42

but what if I were to tell you that

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way or the most expensive

26:02

least effective fucking devil's

26:05

sooner is the way to

26:08

hire.

26:12

It wasn't much back then because

26:14

I skated at the Philadelphia Skating Club. Well,

26:17

no, originally I was skating in Colorado. I

26:19

was dating from a guy named Carlo Fosse. He

26:21

actually had four Olympic champions. He had Peggy

26:24

Fleming, Dorothy Hamill, John Curry, and Robin

26:26

Cousins. And he

26:28

thought he wanted a great American guy. So

26:31

he was influential as well in me getting the sponsorship

26:33

if I would come and take from him. But

26:36

after three years, the first year was devastating

26:38

because I was so bad. The second year I made it to Worlds and

26:40

he was really excited. And

26:42

then the third year I got injured. And

26:45

he just sort of, I think he just

26:47

lost a

26:48

little bit of interest. And you know, we

26:50

had a great friendship, great relationship. I

26:52

said, you saved my skating career. If you want

26:54

me to stay, I'll stay. If it's okay to go to Philadelphia,

26:58

I'll go to Philadelphia. And he said, I like Don.

27:00

He's a good friend of mine. He never said stay.

27:02

And so I was like,

27:05

okay, if you tell me to stay,

27:07

I'll stay. But if you don't really care

27:09

either way, then I'll just go to Philadelphia.

27:11

So I went to Philadelphia and from

27:14

that, like from the Olympics on,

27:16

I made it to the Olympics that year. And

27:19

then he was kind of regretting letting me go. And

27:22

then starting at the end of October

27:24

of 1981 to March of 84, I never lost a competition.

27:29

And so he was really regretting his hand.

27:32

All right. But wait, wait, wait, wait. What

27:34

do you mean you've said this word a couple

27:36

times? Take. Yeah. Oh,

27:40

it's an expression of I was his student. He

27:43

was my coach. So I was taking lessons

27:45

from him. Taking what? Knowledge?

27:47

Taking lessons? Taking experience.

27:49

Taking whatever he had to offer. That's kind of what a

27:52

coach's relationship is. And

27:54

with Carlo, he was very much, you

27:56

know, he was international skaters

27:58

from, I mean, it was like. Skaters

28:00

from Japan and Italy and Canada

28:02

and my goodness all

28:05

over the world were coming to you know Just

28:07

take from Carlo and people would

28:09

you know, they would

28:11

Take lessons from him. They would take

28:13

instruction. They would take advice They

28:15

would take whatever they could get from

28:17

him. It was called taking from and

28:20

that's the expression of learning

28:22

I've never heard the transaction

28:26

Referred to like that the sharing

28:28

of anything from knowledge to emotion

28:31

to look maybe even money I

28:33

mean you were taking from the sponsors who and

28:36

this is the point I wanted to make Scott you

28:38

were chosen By your parents and

28:41

you were chosen by your sponsors That's

28:43

interesting to me You know because

28:47

so many of us are not we're born of

28:49

or we somehow are Brought

28:52

into a thing but that's a good point actually

28:54

to be affirmatively chosen and to

28:57

affirmatively receive Take,

28:59

you know, I think that's an interesting

29:02

metaphor for for living. Yeah, it is

29:04

Yeah, we were always taking you know,

29:06

we're taking from each other constantly in many

29:09

different forms, you know, whether it be you

29:11

know, we take friendship from someone or

29:14

we we take Inspiration

29:18

or or receive, you know receive

29:20

take kind of in the same way

29:23

Yeah, man, but those are different

29:25

houses on the same street And

29:29

I love language and so I just

29:31

think this idea as somewhat

29:33

of a bloody do-go-dur or at least somebody

29:35

who tries to Make a difference. It's

29:38

very easy to To

29:40

think of yourself in terms of well, look what

29:42

I'm going to give and

29:44

you know, look what I'm going to share Right

29:47

and there's an arrogance in that

29:49

where the receiver Has to

29:52

somehow adopt his or

29:54

her own Mindset for

29:56

that. Are they going to passively receive

29:59

that which is being? offered or

30:01

are they going to take

30:03

that which is up

30:05

to be taken? I just wonder if there's something

30:07

in that that distinguishes maybe

30:09

a gold medal from a bronze

30:12

or an athlete from an audience

30:14

member. Well, it's a lot of work and timing, yeah. So

30:17

much of it is that relationship, right? You

30:21

see so many classic,

30:24

like all those teams that had John Wooden,

30:27

oh my goodness, they came out of there better

30:29

than they ever could have been had it not been for him.

30:32

And then you've got other relationships where you have the great

30:34

player that makes the coach kind

30:36

of shine. So there's always kind

30:38

of that give and take. It's

30:40

funny with my coach, Don, who I

30:42

left Karla to take from Don, we

30:44

had a really strong friendship. But the

30:46

main thing I had with Don that I never

30:49

would ever have with Karla was Don

30:51

was 100% all in. I

30:54

was going to be his focus. I was going to be his intention.

30:56

I was going to be like he was going to put everything

30:59

he had into me because he saw untapped

31:01

potential and

31:02

he was going to get out of me in some

31:04

way, shape or form. So when I went to

31:06

Don, my leash was about two

31:09

inches long.

31:10

Like he was just, I want to know

31:12

how you're eating. I want to know how you're

31:15

going to know when you go to sleep. I want to know we

31:17

got to get you into a mode of really

31:19

just structured discipline. I was like, yes,

31:21

sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Whatever

31:24

he had to offer, I was just taken in. Yes, sir. And it

31:26

was really

31:26

wild that that year he got

31:30

me over my hatred of compulsory figures and

31:32

got me to love them. And in that

31:34

year that we started the run, it was

31:37

remarkable because he kind of started

31:39

like letting more of the leash go. He

31:42

saw me sort of starting to get

31:44

into a situation where I was kind of owning

31:47

it more than I'd ever owned it

31:49

before. I was always just, tell me what to do and I'll do it. And

31:51

now I was like, I'm at a point where I

31:53

can step into something and say, well,

31:55

now I kind of know who I am.

31:57

And he felt, I think.

32:00

think, and he even mentioned it long

32:02

after all of this was

32:04

done, that, you know, he got to a point

32:06

where he realized he was really

32:08

good for me. And then he got

32:10

to a point where he just wanted to stand

32:13

back and not screw it up.

32:18

This to me, Scott, this is

32:20

so interesting. Quick sidebar. I just

32:22

watched a documentary called Beckham.

32:24

Have you seen it yet? I'd love

32:26

to see it. I recommend it. It's

32:29

so interesting on so many levels. But

32:32

one thing that struck me is

32:35

how a coach at any

32:37

given time can be the perfect

32:40

coach. And then one day, they're not.

32:43

Maybe you took all you can take from them, or maybe

32:46

they've served their purpose in whatever your evolution

32:48

is. I don't know, but I hear stories,

32:51

you know, guys like Wooden, for instance, who

32:54

could be different coaches to different players

32:57

on the same team at the different time.

32:59

Or at the same time, who knew that

33:02

they needed to put this one on a short leash and

33:04

this one on a long one. And

33:07

then others who never bent, but

33:09

who were still very, very successful. And

33:12

it was really up to the player to realize, okay,

33:15

I've learned all I'm going to learn. You mentioned

33:17

Evie and Don and Carlo. And, you

33:20

know, are you a composite

33:22

of all of them? A hundred percent.

33:25

The first real coach when I left home

33:27

six months a year to Illinois,

33:29

that first year I made it to nationals. Actually, I had

33:32

a coach who was an Olympic champion. I think a two time

33:34

Olympic champion. His name was Pierre Brunet. He

33:36

was from France and he was the most structured,

33:39

elegant, intelligent man. I think

33:41

I've ever. Wait a minute. Pierre Brunet was from

33:43

France. Is that what you're telling me? Yes. He

33:46

won. Actually, yeah, he and his partner Andre

33:48

Juli won the

33:51

Olympic gold medal in Paris for skating.

33:53

And he became this phenomenal coach. And

33:56

I went to Illinois to take from anyone

33:58

who would teach me in this particular.

33:59

camp and he taught me

34:02

but he was really good at teaching technique

34:04

on figures. He designed blades

34:07

and he was really a craftsman and a scientist

34:09

but he was an elegant awesome amazing guy.

34:12

He was just over my head. I loved

34:14

him, I respected him, I would

34:16

do everything I could but I was kind

34:19

of a lost sort of teenage kid

34:21

just trying to figure it out and then he was

34:23

so specific and he would

34:25

never give up on a lesson until he felt like

34:27

he'd broken through and he got that whatever

34:30

that was into my head. So

34:32

there'd be lessons that would last two

34:34

hours sometimes.

34:36

He would just would never give up until he, oh

34:38

you got it? Okay you got it you got it. He

34:40

wasn't the best fit for

34:42

me at the time but a lot of the seeds

34:45

that he planted early on like

34:47

I would oh

34:50

when I got to a point where I could actually

34:52

mature into my skating and sort of start

34:54

applying

34:55

things better I would

34:57

say that's what he meant and I would have

34:59

put it into my skating and it would work brilliantly

35:01

but at the time you know

35:04

you're 14 you're whatever you're just

35:07

clueless you know and and you

35:09

know I when I see young people

35:11

now that are sort of driven

35:13

and and like Max my son

35:16

Max he's he's driven he's

35:18

like he's really eager to learn and

35:20

grow and learn and grow and grow and learn and

35:22

learn and grow he's totally interactive

35:24

and he's he's just he's a sponge

35:27

he's just taking it all in all the time and he's able

35:29

to apply it it's like

35:30

why did you get that gene I didn't get that

35:33

gene like I was

35:35

just such a moron at those

35:37

ages like that Pierre

35:40

here's an example of that he would

35:42

ask me because you start a figure

35:44

like you start your figure on your right outside

35:47

edge and

35:47

then to show their master the figure you'd

35:50

started on the other foot on the left outside edge

35:52

and I could never I have to go like

35:54

okay right with my right hand so it's the

35:56

other foot like it took me that long to figure

35:59

out which was my left

35:59

in my right foot, I just had no capacity

36:02

to do it. And so when I'd have a figure lesson

36:05

from him, he would make sure that

36:07

I had a white lace in my left

36:09

skate. So I would know my left foot from

36:11

my right foot. That's how clueless I was back then. No wonder

36:13

I was coming in last in nationals. I had no idea

36:15

what I was doing. And so Pierre

36:19

gave me a lot, but at the time, I

36:21

just couldn't receive it. But everything

36:24

that he gave to me, I remembered in a way,

36:27

Carlo brought out rhythm. Carlo

36:30

brought out timing. Don brought

36:32

out discipline and structure

36:35

and ownership. And all of that

36:37

thing was this beautiful porridge

36:40

of just wisdom and knowledge

36:43

and technique and everything that I could

36:45

tap into when I needed to

36:47

tap into it the most. And so all

36:50

of those incredible coaches, it's like

36:52

Evie taught me how to show up on time

36:54

and be accountable

36:57

and submissive. Just submit.

36:59

I'm telling you what to do. You do it, and you'll be fine. Just

37:01

do it. He was good that way. But Carlo

37:04

was more about, he was transactional

37:07

in a way, but he was also more about

37:10

really just building a rhythm

37:12

and a technique in the rhythm. And it was

37:15

really effective. But the thing

37:17

was about Carlo, he came over

37:19

after the plane crash in 61 that took

37:21

our entire World Figure Skating Team. He

37:24

was one of the coaches that left Europe

37:26

and came over to kind of pilot the ship in

37:28

America. He lived there. He

37:31

moved there in 61, 62. And

37:33

when I took from him, it was 1976. And

37:37

he still spoke in very broken English.

37:40

Every sentence was in plural

37:42

and past tense.

37:43

I would push off for a figure,

37:45

and he'd say, keep it right arms

37:47

forward. Right,

37:52

right, keep it, keep it. Keep

37:55

it. Everything was pure in past tense.

37:57

It was hilarious. I adored Carlo. And

38:00

you know years later after the Olympics,

38:02

he said to me he goes you're the biggest mistake I

38:04

ever made was letting you go and I said well you're kind

38:07

of say that and we became really

38:09

great friends I adored Carla He was

38:11

so much fun And he had the best sense

38:13

of humor and I would go and do shows for him whether

38:15

being Italy or wherever he wanted me to go, but it's

38:18

just really great that you're able

38:20

to keep

38:22

All that's been poured into you if you're able to

38:24

hang on to it in some way shape or form It'll

38:26

show up at some point in your life, and it'll be like

38:29

oh, I know what to do now

38:31

Somebody told me that 12 years ago. Yeah,

38:33

but isn't it also interesting

38:36

I don't know if this is a theory or this is just

38:38

something I heard from a From

38:41

a great singer years ago with

38:43

regard to technique and regard with

38:45

everything you just said you said

38:49

Don't forget in the course

38:51

of accumulating all of this expertise

38:54

knowledge and technique Don't

38:57

forget to forget it

38:59

because ultimately His

39:01

point was if you're in the audience and

39:04

you're watching a performance that you will

39:06

later recall as great It

39:09

won't be because The person

39:12

checked all of the technical boxes

39:15

as they were doing it right and this

39:17

is what so interests me about your sport

39:19

because it is evaluated

39:22

under that kind of microscope where Everything

39:25

is dissected evaluated played back

39:27

in super slow motion and analyzed But

39:31

the the artistry like if

39:33

you like the really great skaters when I look

39:35

at like like dick button, right? It's

39:37

like those are his skates right there.

39:39

You can see him. Those are dick. No, I'm gonna game

39:42

Oh really like it's a box. There's

39:44

no skates in there, but the box He

39:46

had his own line of skates and so

39:48

that's one of my favorite things is dick

39:50

button skates Of all time,

39:53

I don't know anything about your sport really

39:55

in fact, I got questions about the South Cal

39:57

I'm falling off for dad. I need to know where that came

40:00

from. My point here is with

40:02

any of the great performances I've ever seen, including

40:05

you doing that backflip, I didn't

40:07

see you technically doing

40:09

anything. I just saw you doing

40:11

something I know I can't do,

40:14

something that was otherworldly that

40:16

kind of made me tear up a little bit.

40:19

To me, that's not technique. That's like the sum

40:21

of all those things jammed together

40:24

and some version of art. You

40:26

know, it's the 41,600 falls. There you

40:28

go. No, but it is. You

40:30

get up 41,600 times, you learn to process failure differently.

40:33

It's finally getting to

40:35

a position where you can do something. I

40:38

tell this to, if I'm teaching a lesson or something

40:40

to any of our kids, I said, you remember

40:42

the first time you landed an axel? They'll go,

40:44

yes. I go, do you remember how when

40:46

you landed it, all of a sudden every

40:49

cell in your body changed to

40:51

the point where now it makes sense? It

40:54

didn't

40:54

before because you're trying to

40:56

figure out how to get in the position to make it happen.

40:58

Then all of a sudden you did and

41:01

now you understand what that rotation

41:03

feels like. It's like, aha. Then

41:06

it's like everything changes. Everything

41:09

changes. Because it's possible. It's

41:11

the same with doubles and it's the same with triples. It's

41:13

the same with all these rotational jumps.

41:15

It's like you've got to break through

41:17

that hesitation. You've got to teach your body

41:20

what it feels like in order to spin

41:22

in the air three times around and stop and land

41:25

backwards on one foot and make it look effortless.

41:28

It's all this crazy stuff. You

41:30

do it enough times and then all of a sudden

41:32

it's like what you're saying is you just

41:35

turn off your brain and you just let your body

41:37

do what you've trained it to do. All of it

41:40

is in preparation. Some of

41:42

those worst recurring nightmares of like, oh,

41:45

you have to skate again. It's like, what? No,

41:47

I'm 65 and I haven't done this

41:50

in 13 years. It's like, there's no

41:53

way. No, we need you to get out there and we

41:55

need you to skate. It's like, uh, no.

42:00

dangerous because you have

42:02

to be consistently

42:04

doing these things so your body knows

42:06

exactly the timing, the rhythm,

42:09

the feeling, all of it, so

42:11

that all you have to do is just set it up and

42:13

then it happens on its own. When

42:16

did the sport change in

42:18

a way that was relative

42:21

or commensurate to say Roger

42:24

Bannister breaking the four minute mile?

42:28

What was the moment? Was it Dick?

42:30

Was it Button? Dick Button was the greatest skater of all

42:32

time. I don't even hesitate when I say that.

42:35

Tell me why. Because the foundation

42:37

of skating has always been like when you go

42:39

back to when it was first in the Olympics,

42:42

when it was all this, they would carve

42:44

these patterns on the ice

42:46

and the competition was carving these patterns

42:49

on the ice and then tracing them and then doing all these

42:51

things. People

42:54

like Ulrich Salchow realized

42:57

that wow, I could jump in the air and I

42:59

could land and

43:02

that could be part of my routine and

43:05

Axel Paulson,

43:08

same like Alois Lutz

43:11

and all these people they started coming up with these

43:13

jumps that they would invent to put into their programs

43:15

to make it a little bit more athletic. Sunny

43:19

Henny came out and she said, I don't

43:21

care about any of this figure stuff, I'm just going to

43:23

go out and put on a show. She became

43:25

this sensation

43:26

that was unbelievable and then on the heels

43:28

of that, Dick Button said this

43:31

isn't an activity on the ice, this

43:33

is an athletic endeavor

43:35

and what he did and his coach wasn't even a

43:37

skating coach, his coach was a ski jumper

43:40

and like Placid got Gus Lucy.

43:42

He taught him how to jump

43:45

and how to spin and how to do all these things

43:47

and Dick Button introduced

43:49

and invented so many of the things that

43:51

people do today and he was 25 years ahead

43:55

of the rest

43:56

of the sport. The guys that

43:58

came in after him were great. He's janky.

43:59

was great, David Jenkins was great, but

44:02

Dick's, he set the bar and

44:04

it was just remarkable, the quality

44:07

and just the explosive amplitude

44:09

that he'd get out of his jumping was just unbelievable.

44:12

Like, if you're a big jumper in skating,

44:14

you can jump as high as your knee, he

44:16

would jump as high as his mid thigh effortlessly

44:19

and then he would land and everything

44:21

was very proper and very elegant back then, but

44:23

his spinning was amazing. His jumping

44:26

into spinning was amazing and his jumping

44:28

was next level with triples and everything

44:30

that nobody had ever seen before. So Dick

44:32

Button was the guy that was the catalyst

44:34

that changed skating forever and in

44:37

that I think he's the greatest of all time. I

44:39

don't want to take anything away from anybody else,

44:42

but no one will do what he did for the sport.

44:45

Nathan Chen took it into the quads. Nathan

44:48

Chen is a phenomenal athlete

44:51

and did in rotation jumping

44:53

what no human being has ever been able to do

44:56

before. And then on his heels

44:58

came Ilya Melanin who's an

45:01

American skater, did the first quad axle in

45:03

competition. So that I never thought I'd see in

45:05

my life, but I saw

45:07

it and it was just

45:09

like, this is for freaks and mutants. It

45:11

has nothing to do with human beings

45:13

actually doing these things anymore. These are just

45:16

wacky people that I think some alien

45:19

species dropped off on the planet to do these

45:21

crazy things because in my estimation,

45:23

they're impossible, but they do it effortlessly

45:26

and in that they're phenomenal.

45:29

When is the last time you saw anyone

45:32

in any sport do

45:35

a thing that made you

45:37

clutch your metaphorical pearls? So

45:41

it's happened again. I

45:43

mean, whether it's Simone Biles or

45:46

whether they're solar. Yeah, she'd be

45:48

one. Yeah, yeah. That becomes addictive,

45:50

doesn't it? Like the search for that.

45:52

Well, you look at like the Mary Lou Renton's

45:55

and

45:56

I pray for her. I guess she's having some health issues

45:58

right now.

45:59

just her

46:01

explosive personality

46:04

within her sport. My wife and I

46:06

got to go to Beijing after the Olympics and

46:08

saw Michael Phelps' first gold medal swim.

46:11

And in one way, it's a bunch of guys

46:13

just splash around in the water if you don't have the commentary

46:15

to kind of be purging along, right? So

46:18

it's a bunch of guys splash, splash, splash, splash, splash, splash, splash, he comes out

46:20

and he wins. But this guy,

46:22

when he's standing up on the blocks

46:24

to go

46:25

out to swim, you're looking at this guy

46:27

and he's just like, everything about

46:30

him is meant, like physically, is

46:32

meant to do what he's about to do. His

46:35

physical makeup is just so perfect

46:38

for swimming. He's got the long torso, the short legs,

46:41

big feet. I mean, it's just like, this

46:43

guy is just built to swim and then when

46:45

he hits the water, it's just another

46:47

gear. And it takes like the same

46:49

bolt. When you see him come out of the blocks,

46:51

you're on a sprint, you're thinking, he's

46:53

in second gear.

46:54

No, he's not even in first gear.

46:58

He's in second gear because it's stride and it's everything.

47:00

But then as you see it sort of pick up speed,

47:03

it just, it takes your breath away literally just

47:05

watching this guy just went

47:07

by everybody. Those types

47:09

of performances. And when you see like, you

47:12

know, the Conor McDavid's in hockey and when

47:14

you see, you know, the Patrick

47:16

Mahomes, you know, and what they can do in their

47:18

sports and you see

47:21

these great baseball players and these

47:24

all of it is just so surreal

47:26

and so superhuman, you know,

47:29

that's why you watch and that's why you're

47:31

drawn into all these sports. And the second

47:34

anyone takes that away, people

47:36

lose interest. What

47:39

worries you most today

47:41

about the state of professional sports

47:44

in general and in

47:46

your own chosen? I

47:48

don't know. I think

47:51

growth is such a, you know,

47:54

it should be a four letter word, you know, in

47:56

a way, you know, you look at Olympic

47:59

rights fees. now and they're in the billions

48:01

of dollars for one Olympics. How

48:04

do you pay for that? Well, you got

48:06

to get it back in advertiser dollars and

48:08

you got to get it back in sponsorships. You got to get it back in

48:10

all these things. And now when

48:13

I competed, and again, I'm not the grumpy old man

48:15

at all. That's not the point I'm trying to

48:17

make here. When I competed, all eyes

48:19

were on me and Bill Johnson on that day. That

48:21

was it. We got 100% of the... We were

48:23

the gold medalists of that day and we got all the attention.

48:27

And Olympics then was appointment

48:29

television, meaning that it was only on one place,

48:31

you could get it and you had to watch it. Now

48:33

it's on 24 hours a day on

48:36

five or six different networks because that's the

48:38

economy of the sport now. I worry

48:40

that it's almost gotten to the point where

48:43

it's too much. You almost take

48:45

it for granted. And I came

48:48

back from... I was covering

48:50

the Olympics in my basement actually, this

48:53

last Beijing Olympics for the Winter Olympics

48:55

because of COVID, everybody was home or in Stanford.

48:58

And I did a speech in Reading, Pennsylvania.

49:00

I go, Hey, everybody, would

49:02

you watch the Olympics? I go, I watch

49:03

the Olympics. I raise my hand

49:05

and now one hand went up.

49:06

And I thought we've got a big

49:10

problem here. And even, I don't

49:13

even know if you're aware of this, but the figure

49:15

skating team competition that kind of

49:17

went into a tailspin after

49:20

Camila Valleva became

49:22

apparent that she failed a drug test. A

49:25

drug test, sure.

49:26

There hasn't been an awards ceremony yet.

49:29

Didn't know that. How long ago was

49:31

that? Year and a half? Yeah.

49:33

Yeah. There's no leadership

49:36

right now

49:37

in the Olympic movement. And I'm

49:39

really worried that the Olympic movement is going

49:41

to be diminished without strong

49:44

forward thinking leadership. If

49:46

it's all about growth and more money and more

49:48

money and more money and more money, then

49:51

I think they're losing the product

49:54

and all of that. And I do think that you

49:56

look at what used to

49:58

cost $2 to get into a baseball.

49:59

game is now $200 and how many

50:02

people can afford that? And you look

50:04

at, you know, sort of, again, the growth

50:06

of the industries, and it's great that they're

50:08

financially strong and well and the players

50:11

are doing better financially, but how

50:13

is that sustainable?

50:15

You know, the end of the day, the

50:17

common person should be able to have access

50:19

to all of these sports. And

50:22

that's less and less possible.

50:24

And that's a concern. And again, I'm not being the grumpy

50:26

old man, I'm just looking at this as how is this

50:28

sustainable if it's going to be 15 to 20% growth

50:31

a year?

50:33

It's not. I wonder if

50:36

there's a lesson in there like with your

50:38

coaches, right? Like the populace,

50:41

the masses, we can only consume so

50:43

much, whether it's streaming services

50:45

or Olympic events or whatever it is. And

50:48

when we get too much, we just kind of seize

50:50

up, right? We just can't get

50:53

through it. I think about the X

50:55

games and the way they

50:58

evolved. Right. And I think,

51:00

I think about my own self three

51:03

weeks ago in the middle of the night, flicking around,

51:05

couldn't sleep. You know what I landed

51:07

on? It wasn't an Olympic

51:10

sport. It was cornhole.

51:12

Cornhole, man, that saved COVID

51:14

for me, cornhole. That was just awesome.

51:17

And then, sponsored by

51:19

that bean company, and I sat there

51:21

for hours watching his knuckleheads through

51:23

bean bags, through a little hole.

51:26

And then, oh man, if you ever stumble

51:28

across like the dart champions,

51:30

you know, triple twenties,

51:33

baby, triple twenties. Yeah, man, all day long. So

51:36

I wonder if when

51:38

it tips and when the critical masses go,

51:40

you know what? I don't care when the next ceremony

51:43

is, you wore me out. You

51:45

made me tired. Tanya Harding, you

51:47

screwed that up for me in

51:49

a way. You know what? Baseball, that

51:52

strike screwed it up. You know what? Bob

51:54

Erse, when you took the Colts out of Baltimore,

51:57

you screwed that up. You know what I'm doing now? I'm

51:59

watching. I think a lot

52:01

of other people are too. It's always fun

52:03

to kind of, and that's why curling took off in the Olympics

52:06

like it did. Those guys, they

52:08

were like the, they were the wretched refuse.

52:10

Nobody wanted these guys to be in the Olympics

52:12

and yet they win the gold medal. It

52:15

was awesome and it's just like, I

52:18

can do that. You know, it's like anytime

52:20

you see a sport and it's like, I can

52:22

do that. And it was so funny that they

52:25

make that we have in Antioch and Tennessee,

52:28

just during the Olympics, they set up curling just for

52:30

fun, just to have people come out and just have curling

52:33

and they couldn't keep up with the

52:35

demand. It was so much

52:38

fun. People just love that. But you know,

52:40

there's always going to be that where, you know,

52:42

it's the common man. Just, we just

52:44

have to watch something that entertains us

52:46

and that inspires us. And when things

52:48

get kind of out of our reach, then

52:51

it's like, okay, let me find something

52:53

else. And if it's cornhole, great.

52:56

I mean, it's just, you know, these

52:58

guys have their earbuds in so they can focus

53:00

now. You know, they've got their headphones

53:03

on. Right. They got

53:05

their playlist and they're so dialed

53:07

in. Honestly, I think it's

53:09

one of the, I hate to say profound,

53:12

let's go with salient, but like that's

53:14

the difference. When I saw you do the back

53:17

flip, when I see you do

53:19

a triple South cow or

53:21

whatever the heck it is, it's, there's

53:23

fairy dust in this, right? It's magic.

53:26

No way, no how am

53:29

I ever going to be able to do that. But

53:31

give me a broom. Give me a broom

53:33

and let me prepare, you know, as

53:35

that whatever you call that thing, the stone

53:38

and the curling things. I

53:40

can't do it as well, but I can see myself.

53:42

In fact, I did it for an episode of a show

53:45

and I loved it. So there's

53:48

something to be said for the magic

53:50

of true excellence and

53:52

the attainability of true passion.

53:55

But there also has to be in the conversation,

53:58

which it's been lost a little bit.

53:59

my industry is when

54:02

I turned pro there was nothing for me. The

54:05

guy that signed me to my first

54:07

contract for the ice capades held

54:10

his nose while doing it. He didn't really

54:12

want anything to do with me but he didn't want me

54:14

to go to the competition and you know

54:17

kind of lose face or whatever so I got

54:19

signed to the ice capades and he said you know you're

54:21

just gonna be like everybody else you're gonna you

54:23

know miss shows and you're gonna do this you're gonna do

54:25

that and it's like no I'm gonna be the best employee you've

54:27

ever had and I realized

54:29

that there was a void that

54:31

needed to be filled in skating because

54:34

I would always go out and I'd look through the curtain

54:36

and I would see you know kind of how many people

54:38

in the audience and there'd be always that

54:40

guy sitting there with his arms crossed

54:43

looking at his watch and kind of checking

54:45

out the audience to make sure none of his friends were there

54:47

because he didn't want to get you know roasted and

54:50

I said and I thought and this is kind

54:52

of a really important thing I think for

54:54

anyone to kind of just just

54:57

maybe be tempted by it a little bit those

54:59

men were underserved those

55:02

men weren't being catered to

55:04

and I thought

55:06

if I can build my skating around

55:09

just appealing to these men

55:11

right just to give them something

55:14

that they can say I like that that was cool if

55:16

I could work hard enough or if I could be

55:18

strategic enough or if I could you know learn

55:20

how to do a backflip on skates if I could do all

55:22

these things if I could bring those

55:25

men in I'll can skate for as

55:27

long as I want because now like

55:29

this untapped market is now kind

55:31

of gonna get into it and it's so funny

55:33

that that was sort of my mindset it's

55:35

got to be cool it's got to be broadly accessible

55:38

it's got to be fun it's got to be athletic and

55:40

it's got to be there's got to be some elements

55:43

in it that's these guys are gonna go that's I

55:45

like that guy and so now

55:47

I'll be at Nashville Airport I'm telling this

55:50

it happens all the time it happens all the time

55:53

a guy'll come up to me and I say are you the skater and

55:55

I go yes sir and he goes I thought you

55:57

looked familiar I don't watch

55:59

that stuff

55:59

I'm more like football guy and I like to say

56:02

stuff. But my wife, my wife

56:04

loves you. Can I introduce you to my wife?

56:06

I go, absolutely. So the guy

56:09

will go and he'll get his wife. Honey,

56:11

look who's here. And she'll look at me

56:13

and she'll look at him and she'll look at me and she'll

56:15

look at him and she'll say, I'm sorry, I don't know

56:17

who that is. And it's like,

56:20

I win, I win. I

56:22

got him, he won't admit it, but

56:25

I got him. And then that's kind of

56:27

how, that's how I was able to tour

56:29

for 20 years.

56:29

I'm convinced of it because we

56:32

got to look at areas like people,

56:34

it's like we've got to grow

56:36

in places where and be appealing

56:38

to groups that may never, ever want

56:41

to see

56:42

our sport. And in that it

56:44

becomes growth and it becomes exciting

56:46

and it becomes more just broad. And

56:50

it's fun to dream like that. And

56:52

I didn't even get picked up for my third year in ice capades.

56:55

The new owner only wanted women, so they

56:57

let me go. No option, just goodbye,

57:00

good luck. And so I was able to, I

57:02

learned enough and I'd proved myself

57:04

enough that I was given a

57:06

chance to build a tour called Stars on Ice

57:09

and

57:10

it's still out there. I got questions

57:12

about that, but again, you're just

57:14

around the edges, I think, of another really great

57:16

point. And it really rhymes with everything

57:19

we've been talking about, but it's this idea

57:21

of growth and the idea

57:23

that part of what I think

57:26

attracts people to

57:28

very specific or niche pursuits

57:31

is their inherent smallness, right?

57:35

I mean, Chuck and I paid our dues in

57:37

the Barber Shop Harmony Society. And

57:39

I know people who are crazy for square dancing.

57:42

And I know, I can go down the list

57:44

of these, right? And then what

57:47

happens when it gets

57:50

too big? And I don't know

57:52

what too big means, but you sure as

57:54

hell know it when it happens,

57:57

because all of a sudden it doesn't.

58:00

feel like a thing you discovered. It

58:02

doesn't feel small and special.

58:04

You don't feel like you're in on your own private

58:06

little thing. Now it got too big

58:09

and so forth and so on. So I just wonder, whether

58:11

it's cornhole or figure skating or something

58:14

in between, isn't that another

58:17

dichotomy, another risk that's

58:19

always there to be managed? Yeah,

58:22

and I think if you do something

58:24

really well, you'll have your moment.

58:27

There'll be a period of time. They're

58:29

freaks, right? There's Bruce Springsteen,

58:32

Neil Diamond. 50 years

58:34

later, they're still selling out arenas all over the world,

58:36

right? But you have other

58:39

people that they're really great and they're

58:41

solid, but they have to be strategic about

58:43

where they play because they're just not going to draw the

58:45

same as they used to. During

58:47

the heyday of Stars on Ice, we would sell

58:49

out arenas clean

58:52

all over the country. St. Louis

58:54

had 19,600 tickets sold one year. And

58:58

I didn't know there was an arena that sat that

59:00

many people, but it was the first time I stepped on

59:02

the ice and I felt like I was six inches tall.

59:05

I just felt like, oh my goodness, I'm

59:07

being swallowed whole by this audience. And

59:09

sure enough, we sold out Madison Square Garden

59:11

Clean five years in a row. It

59:13

was a happening thing. And

59:16

then all of a sudden, the bubble burst. And

59:20

audiences went down 45%.

59:22

Why?

59:24

Different skaters, maybe

59:26

not in the show anymore, whatever. There

59:29

was enough of a change and enough of a shift.

59:32

There wasn't that same momentum and excitement

59:34

around it. So I think you've got to be strategic.

59:37

And I think you've got to be really smart about who

59:39

your audience is and how to maintain

59:42

them and how to secure them and how to keep them

59:44

interested. You

59:46

care enough about them where you're not going to give them the same

59:48

old stuff year after year after year. Engaged.

59:52

Engaged. How do you keep them engaged?

59:54

My role models weren't skaters.

59:57

What one was? Gordie McAllen was a great role model

59:59

for me.

59:59

way entertained. But you know, I thought

1:00:02

if I could be blue collar and just roll up my sleeves

1:00:04

and get to work like Springsteen, I could

1:00:06

build an audience. And if I showed joy

1:00:08

every single time I was on the ice like Neil

1:00:10

Diamond does from the stage, maybe I

1:00:13

could keep an audience. And if

1:00:15

I was inventive and crazy, and I

1:00:17

just didn't really care about staying

1:00:19

in a lane, and I was really just going to be

1:00:21

all over the map and trying to, you know,

1:00:23

discover different rhythm styles, comedic

1:00:26

or whatever, and just be unpredictable like

1:00:29

Robert Plant led

1:00:31

that point in solo career, then

1:00:33

I could probably create even a greater

1:00:36

type of longevity. And all

1:00:38

of those things, you know, they work, you

1:00:40

know, it's just being strategic and smart

1:00:43

and really trying to be humble enough

1:00:45

and work hard enough to kind of initially build

1:00:47

an audience, and then try

1:00:50

to hang on to them in any way you possibly can.

1:00:53

But

1:00:53

what about this? I mean, there's such a distinction

1:00:55

there in keeping the audience of

1:00:58

fans that you've always had, and

1:01:01

building a new audience of fans

1:01:03

who weren't fogging a mirror when

1:01:06

you were winning gold medals, right? This

1:01:08

is something I think about a lot right

1:01:10

now. I'm not done yet, but I'm older

1:01:13

than I've ever been. And I would like to

1:01:15

do another show. And I have

1:01:17

to answer a pretty fundamental

1:01:20

question, which is, should I do something

1:01:22

that I think will appeal to

1:01:24

the guy who came up to you in the airport,

1:01:27

right, on behalf of his wife, right?

1:01:29

Should I do something for people who I'm pretty

1:01:31

sure were watching me crawl through sewers 20 years

1:01:34

ago, or should I try and do

1:01:36

something for, you know, Gen

1:01:38

Z, people who don't know me?

1:01:41

I honestly don't know what the answer is, because

1:01:43

over here in the four letter word

1:01:46

called growth, or growth, which is

1:01:48

technically more, but right, I got advertisers

1:01:51

who are saying, ah, the key demo, this

1:01:53

is what you need to do, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But

1:01:55

over here, I've got the people who I

1:01:57

think have been in my world for the last.

1:02:00

20-30 years. Do you

1:02:02

think about that when you're flying through the air

1:02:04

hoping not to fall for the sixth time? Well

1:02:06

I got to a point. I was 20 years in, my son was

1:02:09

six

1:02:13

months old and

1:02:15

I was just center ice Madison Square

1:02:17

Garden. It's like something's

1:02:20

wrong here. Next day I was at

1:02:22

Nassau Coliseum and it's like what

1:02:24

is it? I've never felt like this before in the ice.

1:02:27

What's wrong with this? And it's like I don't belong

1:02:29

here anymore. I need

1:02:32

to be home. I want to see his first steps and

1:02:34

I want to hear his first words and I want to be, I've

1:02:36

worked long and hard enough to be a dad

1:02:39

that can be there for his first years.

1:02:42

And so I decided in that moment

1:02:45

in Nassau Coliseum I go this is it

1:02:47

I'm done and I stepped away and

1:02:50

it was remarkable that I

1:02:53

kind of figured it it's time to shift gears.

1:02:56

And I wanted to shift gears

1:02:58

in 2001 when I did this big farewell

1:03:00

tour but then 9-11

1:03:02

happened and it sucked the air out of everything. Nothing

1:03:05

was happening. People were staying home. They don't

1:03:07

want to go out anymore. They wanted to stay home. And so I

1:03:10

realized that in all those transitions it's

1:03:13

really difficult to

1:03:15

kind of sacrifice

1:03:18

sort of this popularity or this idea

1:03:21

that you're a focus of something

1:03:23

or you've got this audience or whatever. It's

1:03:26

really hard to step away from that. It really is.

1:03:28

But how do you find it in other ways?

1:03:31

And in that you know I

1:03:33

did the broadcasting for 9 Olympics

1:03:36

and I really love it and I'd love to

1:03:38

do another Olympics. I'd love to do another Olympics

1:03:40

but that's enough to me. But in the other and the

1:03:43

rest of it it's like how do I give back to

1:03:45

my sport? Well I've got the skating academy at

1:03:48

the Fort Icenters you know the Nashville Predators

1:03:50

here in Nashville and we're growing and I'd

1:03:52

love to continue to grow that and

1:03:55

and give back to my sport. And then what

1:03:57

else? Well I lost my mom to cancer

1:03:59

and I survived. and so what

1:04:01

do I want to be a significant

1:04:04

influence activist in the cancer

1:04:07

space. I didn't pick it, it picked

1:04:09

me so game on let's go

1:04:11

and so you know I've got the CARES Foundation

1:04:14

where we raise money for right

1:04:16

now we've done a lot of things in CARES we built chemo

1:04:19

care.com which helps people understand

1:04:22

better what they're going through with

1:04:24

chemotherapy because it's written in a great ingress

1:04:26

in Spanish and with every any language

1:04:28

in the world through Google Translate but you

1:04:31

know giving people education

1:04:33

in cancer giving people support through

1:04:35

my fourth angel mentoring program all

1:04:37

those are at the Cleveland Clinic Tossing Cancer Center

1:04:39

and then now finding a cure and it's just

1:04:41

like we really believe that our

1:04:43

immune system holds the key to curing

1:04:47

cancer period and we're really investing

1:04:50

in immunotherapy we're very small high

1:04:52

impact organization that is very collaborative

1:04:55

and we do well you know working with others because

1:04:57

cancer isn't a me problem it's an us problem and

1:05:00

so you know I figured if there's any way that I can

1:05:02

leverage anything I was

1:05:04

able to accomplish in all of

1:05:06

my me years of take as we

1:05:09

discussed earlier and receive if

1:05:11

there's any way I can flip the script on that and now

1:05:13

give back to all those people that

1:05:16

may or may not know who I am but you know the ones

1:05:18

that remember me maybe

1:05:21

leveraging that relationship into maybe

1:05:24

saving their grandchild's

1:05:26

life or their child's lives or

1:05:29

their lives

1:05:30

you want people to take from you yeah

1:05:33

please people

1:05:35

should understand we can talk as much or as little

1:05:37

about it as you want I want to be respectful

1:05:40

of your time but you know my mom had

1:05:42

breast cancer fought it caught

1:05:44

it early you

1:05:46

obviously lost yours and it I can

1:05:49

only imagine the impact that had but that that

1:05:51

was the beginning of your journey I mean testicular

1:05:54

cancer brain cancer three-time

1:05:57

I mean I don't even I

1:06:00

don't think we've talked about testicular cancer on this

1:06:02

podcast yet. I made

1:06:04

it cool before Lance Armstrong. There we

1:06:06

go. I've

1:06:09

got a Lance Armstrong story for another time,

1:06:11

but honestly, this was

1:06:14

the testicular diagnosis prior

1:06:16

to the first brain episode? Yes.

1:06:18

It's really wild. Testicular

1:06:22

cancer was the greatest thing that

1:06:24

ever happened to me, easily.

1:06:26

I was just so unsettled. The

1:06:29

tail was wagging the dog in my life big time.

1:06:32

I knew that I wasn't living. I

1:06:35

was sort of answering all the celebrity

1:06:37

and answering all the stuff that comes with being

1:06:41

well known or selling out arenas or whatever.

1:06:44

I was kind of stuck in that mode of being

1:06:46

that guy and not who I really

1:06:48

felt like I was organically. When

1:06:51

cancer hit, it stopped me dead in my tracks

1:06:54

and it made me rethink everything. I

1:06:57

thought I lost my mom to cancer and

1:06:59

here I go. Same thing is going

1:07:02

to happen to me, it happened to her. It

1:07:04

didn't. I survived. In

1:07:06

that, I learned so much. In

1:07:08

that, I decided that I needed to make

1:07:11

sure that my next steps,

1:07:13

my next phase in life, my next life

1:07:16

was going to be the one that was organic

1:07:18

to who I am and what I'm about. In

1:07:21

that, I got married and started

1:07:23

a family. Life just became

1:07:26

more real than more surreal

1:07:29

or artificial. In that, I

1:07:31

just started giving back. It was right after,

1:07:33

I think my son was 14 months

1:07:36

old.

1:07:37

I was diagnosed with my first brain tumor.

1:07:42

That was frightening. It ignited my faith

1:07:44

in a huge way. Oh my goodness.

1:07:46

I just fell so in love with Jesus.

1:07:49

It was incredible. I

1:07:51

always believed in God but it was there that I really

1:07:53

went all in. They

1:07:57

did radiation on that and then six

1:07:59

years later. it came back and

1:08:02

this time it was surgery and the surgery had

1:08:04

a complication and in that complication,

1:08:08

I had to have nine

1:08:11

cerebral angiograms. Basically

1:08:13

my groin got invaded more times that summer.

1:08:15

Well I can't really tell that joke on this program but

1:08:17

anyway it was nine surgery summer and then

1:08:20

I went blind in my

1:08:26

right eye for a day and they

1:08:28

were able to get some of it back and then six years

1:08:31

later it came back again and now

1:08:35

I'm looking at it for the third time and and

1:08:37

this time my face ignited

1:08:39

in a really cool way and all I heard

1:08:41

when they're giving me options was

1:08:43

get strong. They're giving me a

1:08:46

surgical option. All I heard in the back of my mind was

1:08:48

get strong. My whole spirit was just saying get strong. I

1:08:51

go I need to be listening

1:08:53

to this. Please just shut up. Emotionally,

1:08:55

spiritually, physically, emotionally.

1:08:58

All of it and I did

1:09:00

D all the above and so everything I do now

1:09:03

I really try to be focused

1:09:05

on everything I do now. If it's

1:09:07

going to have any quality at all there

1:09:09

has to be a physical component to it, an

1:09:12

emotional component to it, an intellectual

1:09:14

component to it and a spiritual component

1:09:16

to it and if any of those legs

1:09:18

of the chair are missing, I'm probably

1:09:21

it's not going to be successful. I'm

1:09:23

sitting in that chair and it's been

1:09:25

remarkable that so many

1:09:27

things have happened, so many doors have opened, so

1:09:29

many remarkable things have just

1:09:32

or maybe I'm just seeing it differently now but for

1:09:34

the last seven years that tumor has

1:09:36

not needed any treatment at all. It

1:09:39

grows and it shrinks and it shrinks and it grows

1:09:41

and it shrinks and it grows and it grows and it shrinks and

1:09:44

it's like I can't explain it. I do

1:09:46

think when we don't know where

1:09:48

to look you know for a solution to our problem

1:09:50

up is a problem. Up isn't bad.

1:09:53

It

1:09:54

really isn't. I know

1:09:56

as much about brain cancer as I do about

1:09:58

figure skating but I'm... Me too. I'm

1:10:02

super curious. Given

1:10:04

the schizophrenic nature of the tumor

1:10:06

you've described, do the doctors

1:10:09

know when it first presented?

1:10:13

How long have you had this thing in your head?

1:10:16

I was born with it.

1:10:17

Holy crap. You're kidding.

1:10:20

Remember my childhood illness that put me in hospitals for

1:10:22

four years? Yes. Can you imagine if they

1:10:24

would have found that tumor in

1:10:26

the mid-60s? Dude, they'd have taken the

1:10:28

top of your head off. Oh, totally. Yeah,

1:10:31

and my head's way too pretty. You know, first of

1:10:33

all, those scars. Okay, you've got a perfect bald head. That's a beautiful

1:10:36

head. Yeah, there you go. Too bald. Oh

1:10:38

my God. Wait a minute. Wait. So

1:10:41

that's a thing. That's a thing. That's

1:10:43

a thing. I was born with it. I know.

1:10:46

It blows my mind too because how am I going to get mad at

1:10:48

this brain tumor when it made

1:10:50

or allowed every great thing in my life

1:10:52

to happen? If it weren't for that brain tumor, I never would have

1:10:55

stepped on the ice. If it weren't for that brain

1:10:57

tumor, I wouldn't be the size that I am. If it weren't for that

1:10:59

brain tumor, so many things

1:11:01

in my life would be completely

1:11:04

different. My faith walk would be different. Everything

1:11:06

would be different. Nothing in my life would exist

1:11:09

as it does without that brain

1:11:11

tumor. So I'm kind of, I love that

1:11:13

brain tumor. You

1:11:16

know, it's a nuisance at times, but

1:11:18

generally I have to be grateful in

1:11:21

all things. You know, if I'm struggling

1:11:23

now, I've got to be grateful. If

1:11:27

I'm going through a good, easy period, I

1:11:29

have to really be grateful because

1:11:31

the one thing I think when I see

1:11:33

a lot, especially when you just

1:11:36

step into the world of social media, you

1:11:39

see a lot of things and you see a lot of people

1:11:42

that are hurting and that are lost, that are

1:11:45

just trying to show everybody how great they're doing

1:11:47

or how funny they are. You

1:11:49

know, it's an artificial world. It's not a

1:11:51

real world. But a lot

1:11:53

of people have dedicated their lives to it. And

1:11:55

that's fine. And that's good as

1:11:57

long as we understand that. Who

1:12:00

we are is meant to be in a

1:12:02

community really honestly interacting

1:12:05

and serving others in the best way we possibly

1:12:07

can. And if we're not doing that, we're missing

1:12:10

out on the greatest quality of

1:12:12

life that you can have. I always say

1:12:14

that the greatest gifts given are to those that will

1:12:16

never know its origin. And so

1:12:18

almost everything I do right now in the cancer

1:12:20

world, a lot of the research that we

1:12:22

fund, a lot of the answers that

1:12:25

we find, it's really fun to share

1:12:27

those with an audience that needs desperately

1:12:30

to hear those words. Like funding

1:12:32

glioblastoma, multiform brain cancer, it

1:12:35

took us a long time to find a researcher

1:12:37

because it's such

1:12:40

a short-lived cancer. It

1:12:42

takes people quickly. Yeah. How are

1:12:44

you going to research it? Well, one of the first things they

1:12:46

found out with glio,

1:12:48

oh my goodness, I'm getting, is that it's

1:12:51

not genetic. So

1:12:54

people like in breast cancer or in colorectal

1:12:57

cancer, it's genetic. You have to keep

1:12:59

an eye on things because you may have the genetic makeup

1:13:02

that you're prone to it.

1:13:04

But with glio, there's no genetic marker.

1:13:07

So all of those children

1:13:09

and grandchildren who lost a relative to

1:13:11

glioblastoma, they don't have to worry

1:13:13

that it's now in them already.

1:13:16

And that's all research. That's

1:13:18

how we find things out. That's how we solve problems.

1:13:21

And that's all my foundation does now.

1:13:23

So all of those things of just

1:13:25

being able to, as a taker

1:13:29

for all those years, to now step

1:13:31

into more of a role of a giver,

1:13:34

whether it be what I've learned on the ice to our students

1:13:36

at the academy or to a

1:13:39

research scientist that's going to find a

1:13:41

solution to somebody's problem, it's

1:13:44

all about I'm really trying

1:13:46

to get as many donors as I possibly can

1:13:48

because that's how you solve these problems. But I've

1:13:50

never taken a penny for anything I've done with

1:13:53

CARES ever. I don't even take a – you

1:13:55

know, for anything – if I teach a lesson

1:13:57

and I have to charge and I don't want to because –

1:14:00

I

1:14:00

don't want to take a less than opportunity away from

1:14:02

another coach. And it's complicated,

1:14:04

but as far as the skating academy itself, I

1:14:06

don't get paid for that because I just want to

1:14:09

give back and I want to make sure that anybody that wants

1:14:11

to get on the ice can get on at a reasonable

1:14:13

price because they don't have to pay me. So

1:14:16

there's all of that.

1:14:18

How do you know Dave Ramsey? Just

1:14:20

to sort of land this plane and bring it back

1:14:23

to where we started. How did you and I wind

1:14:25

up in a suburb of Nashville

1:14:28

eating steak and having a big night?

1:14:30

That was a great dinner. Dave lives

1:14:33

well. Dave's the good man. It

1:14:35

was funny because when I came to Nashville,

1:14:38

we had one child and we wanted another one. We

1:14:41

came to Nashville because I didn't want to raise my son

1:14:43

in LA because I didn't think I had the skill set or the

1:14:45

capacity to raise him in a city

1:14:48

like Los Angeles. So we moved

1:14:50

to Nashville. My wife has relatives

1:14:52

in Memphis and Knoxville and Nashville

1:14:54

and all over Tennessee. So it figured it'd be a

1:14:56

great place for support. First thing

1:14:58

I did was get a house. Second

1:15:00

thing I did was get season tickets

1:15:03

to the Nashville Predators. That's nice. I've

1:15:05

been on tour. I could never do that before. Now

1:15:07

I can actually be a season ticket holder. So

1:15:09

I got season tickets and I sat down in the two attack

1:15:11

zone corner where I could look right at the net.

1:15:14

It was perfect. This guy sat

1:15:16

next to me, his name was Bill Hampton and

1:15:19

he did a lot of big work for

1:15:21

Dave Ramsey. So Dave's

1:15:23

seats were two sections down. So between

1:15:25

periods, one time Dave came over and

1:15:27

he said, hey, I'm Dave Ramsey.

1:15:30

I go, hi Dave, nice to meet you. And

1:15:32

I am Scott and I introduce myself. We

1:15:34

talked for a little bit. We talked about hockey and

1:15:36

talked about sports. He walked away

1:15:39

and Bill goes,

1:15:40

you don't have any idea who he is. Nope.

1:15:44

I go, is he famous? He's a nice guy. And

1:15:47

he goes, yeah, Dave Ramsey has a radio

1:15:49

talk show where he helps people get out of debt

1:15:51

and he's really blowing up. He's

1:15:53

on fire right now. And it's like,

1:15:55

wow, that's so cool. I've had Dave Ramsey. That's

1:15:57

really awesome. So we just started spending more.

1:15:59

more time together and we'd have dinner

1:16:02

and we'd get together for whatever.

1:16:05

And it was just a really nice friendship. You

1:16:07

know, I just always liked David Schur. We'd

1:16:09

go to their house down at Tim's Ford Lake and

1:16:11

spend a day and my kids learned our water

1:16:14

ski down there. And he's just a great

1:16:17

guy, you know? And

1:16:19

it's just so funny how it's long. He wants

1:16:21

people to take from him, honestly. Yeah.

1:16:24

I mean, everything I've seen him do, it's not a ministry

1:16:27

in the strict sense of the word, but he

1:16:29

is afflicted in the way people get when the agitation

1:16:32

is born of a belief that

1:16:39

they have something, like

1:16:42

they have something, whether it's insight

1:16:44

or wisdom or knowledge or hope

1:16:47

or something. He really believes that

1:16:49

he has something that can dramatically improve

1:16:52

the lives of a lot of people.

1:16:54

And he's touched countless

1:16:56

lives. A lot. And

1:16:58

he's teaching, he's grown up entrepreneurs

1:17:01

and he's taking and he's still learning.

1:17:03

He's still growing. He's still everything that

1:17:05

he's experienced that put him into that space of

1:17:07

Financial Peace University. Now

1:17:09

he's able to take all of those stories and

1:17:12

all of that impact and all that capacity of

1:17:14

growing his business and doing it

1:17:16

in a way like when Sharon and I

1:17:19

would go to pick up the barbecue

1:17:21

when we're done at Tim's Ford Lake, I'd

1:17:23

offer to pay and I pull out a credit card and she's like,

1:17:25

no, no, no, no, no. And she'd pull out a little

1:17:27

envelope with cash in it. They

1:17:29

don't just talk it, they walk it. And

1:17:32

he wanted to buy the building where they had

1:17:34

their first studio. He said, I don't have enough cash yet.

1:17:37

I can't do it unless I

1:17:39

buy it with cash. And everything he does,

1:17:41

like he built this house, it's

1:17:44

all cash. Every

1:17:46

builder's dream, right? I'm

1:17:49

just finding it increasingly

1:17:51

satisfying at this point in my life to

1:17:53

talk to people who walk the walk.

1:17:56

I don't care about the size of their bank

1:17:59

account. at all but I do care that they

1:18:01

put their money where their mouth is. I'm gonna

1:18:04

be back there Scott. I want to say

1:18:06

April he's doing one of his big events again

1:18:08

so I'll give you a heads up it

1:18:10

would be great to reconnect and have another probably

1:18:13

his on trade leadership big event.

1:18:15

Yeah yeah. My son Max and

1:18:17

I went last year and he was networking the

1:18:19

whole time. Yeah. That's like

1:18:21

watching a 15 year old entrepreneur just

1:18:24

networking like crazy. I mean that's just

1:18:26

like well that kid didn't learn how to hook up that microphone

1:18:29

by osmosis man. He must have been asking

1:18:31

questions. What he's doing it's

1:18:33

really wild. A quick Max story real quick because

1:18:35

he's madly in love with

1:18:37

Jesus right. He's just everything he just

1:18:39

really he told me before he said dad

1:18:42

I'm gonna be a multi multi billionaire

1:18:45

and it's like I bet

1:18:46

yeah I got that's great Max I

1:18:48

go to make sure you do good things with that money and he goes you

1:18:51

know dad you're gonna have I'm gonna buy you any car you want to

1:18:53

have I'm gonna set you up you're gonna have the best

1:18:55

nursing home that anybody's everybody and you know

1:18:58

I got thanks buddy I appreciate that and

1:19:00

then he came to me he goes I don't care if I make a nickel I

1:19:03

go what he goes I just want to serve the kingdom

1:19:05

I just want to be I want to bring as many people

1:19:07

for Jesus I want to save as many people as I can

1:19:10

and I just want to preach and and I

1:19:12

guess what effect lives in a really positive

1:19:14

way and it's like wow that's amazing

1:19:16

that's just incredible

1:19:20

so in that he had a little nest egg and

1:19:22

you know we did a couple eyeshows together and he got

1:19:24

paid for those types of things and and

1:19:26

he goes dad he goes um I was

1:19:28

with some guys tonight is doing a he's doing

1:19:31

a trip to Brazil mission

1:19:34

trip and he needs to get funded and I gave him

1:19:36

half my money I

1:19:38

hear you what

1:19:39

and he goes well I mean you've always said

1:19:41

that if we invest in the kingdom we'll

1:19:43

come back tenfold and I go I believe

1:19:45

that I go are you

1:19:47

sure he goes oh yeah I'm sure yeah

1:19:50

it felt kind of weird doing it I just couldn't

1:19:52

do anything else and I said great so about

1:19:54

two months after that he came home and Danny's

1:19:56

laughing he goes I go what's up and he goes a

1:19:58

couple guys just gave me about ten

1:20:01

thousand dollars worth of gear for

1:20:03

my podcast.

1:20:06

Why did they do that? And they go, they just

1:20:08

felt called to it. Wow. And I'm like, okay,

1:20:12

well, as I said, it really

1:20:14

works. So it's

1:20:16

just that, it's like the more we

1:20:19

step into kind of the mysteries

1:20:21

of the world instead of the absolutes

1:20:23

or whatever propaganda we're ingesting

1:20:26

at any given time. It's really fun

1:20:28

to just be able to be in the presence

1:20:31

of someone else and just

1:20:33

try to serve them

1:20:36

in any way

1:20:37

possible. And you know,

1:20:40

Mike, you've done that in a really cool way. You know,

1:20:42

you've elevated people that

1:20:44

really had no voice. Even now, you're

1:20:47

an interested listener

1:20:50

and you're putting things out there that

1:20:52

can really bless people in unique

1:20:54

and unexpected ways. And I'm

1:20:57

really grateful that Dave

1:20:59

brought us together and I can't wait to see

1:21:01

you in Nashville again soon. Well, it took

1:21:03

me five seconds and thanks by the way. Maybe

1:21:05

five seconds to realize that

1:21:07

you would be a great contribution to

1:21:09

that effort. I think you have a lot to say. You've

1:21:11

got an unexampled and super interesting

1:21:13

life. I love the way you've played the cards.

1:21:16

You've been dealt. Thank you. All of them. Thank

1:21:19

you. Also, two of your own and two adopted?

1:21:21

Is that right? Yeah,

1:21:24

we had my first son Aiden. He's

1:21:26

training MMA. He wants

1:21:29

to hurt people. I'm not

1:21:31

sure I'm sure about that. And then, Max,

1:21:35

Miracle Max, like he came up after

1:21:38

testicular cancer and a pituitary

1:21:40

brain tumor. So there's really no

1:21:42

way he should be on this

1:21:44

planet. But you know, Miracle Max.

1:21:47

And it was 2010. It was Max

1:21:51

was two. I was

1:21:53

at US Figure Skating Championships in Spokane.

1:21:55

I called home to check in and Tracy

1:21:57

was sobbing. And I go, what's wrong?

1:22:00

I go, is the kids okay? And she said, yeah, they're fine,

1:22:02

they're great. You're not watching the TV? And

1:22:04

I go, no, I'm working, I don't care. And

1:22:06

she said, there was an earthquake that hit Haiti and

1:22:10

I think 250 to 300,000 people died in 30 minutes. I

1:22:14

mean, it's unthinkable that

1:22:16

that level of catastrophic

1:22:19

death could happen that quickly, but the

1:22:21

homes, the way they're constructed, and

1:22:23

it just, it was catastrophic,

1:22:26

like in ways that you can't even describe. She

1:22:28

goes, I have to get down there. I

1:22:30

have to serve. And that's her heart. You know, I mean,

1:22:32

she married me, so obviously she's really good at charity,

1:22:35

but we waited until

1:22:37

the professionals left until her

1:22:40

need or what she could do down

1:22:42

there kind of became apparent. And

1:22:44

she'd been to Haiti 28

1:22:45

times. And in that, she

1:22:48

fell in love with these two little kids,

1:22:50

brother and sister.

1:22:52

And I went down there to kind of

1:22:54

serve as well and fell

1:22:56

in love with these kids and realized that we

1:22:59

were meant to bring them home. And so it took us

1:23:02

a bit, like almost three

1:23:04

years, I guess, but we finally got

1:23:06

them home. And now

1:23:09

we have four kids. And my oldest,

1:23:11

Jean-Paul, he's in the workplace.

1:23:13

He's launched. He's trying to figure it out. And Aiden

1:23:16

has his MMA. And my daughter just started

1:23:19

college and she's in political science

1:23:21

and wants to be a lawyer and change the world and

1:23:23

maybe go back to Haiti and fix it, you know, and

1:23:25

good luck with that. And then my little guy, you

1:23:27

know, he's just. What do you call

1:23:30

him? Evangelizing. Max. You

1:23:32

know, yeah, Max. I'm proud of all

1:23:34

of them, you know, in their own way. You know, I

1:23:37

worry about them. You know, it's hard growing up in

1:23:39

this culture.

1:23:40

And, but, you know, we all

1:23:42

have an identity and we have to leverage it in every way

1:23:44

we possibly can. So here we

1:23:46

are. We put the

1:23:48

funds in once and all. Once

1:23:51

more with CARES. Where do people go? How

1:23:54

do they help?

1:23:54

Yeah, scottcares.org. We

1:23:57

do events all over the country. I just got back from Las

1:23:59

Vegas. did an event with the Golden Knights

1:24:01

there. Skates eliminate cancers. We

1:24:03

do them all over the, anybody that wants to host one, they're

1:24:06

really fun, they're easy to do, and we raise

1:24:08

a lot of money doing them. We

1:24:10

always, anytime we do a skates eliminate cancer

1:24:13

in a city,

1:24:13

we leave half the

1:24:15

money, or 40%, 50%, in

1:24:18

that community

1:24:18

with our charity of choice partner to

1:24:21

do the work within the community, and then the other half

1:24:23

goes towards funding research. And

1:24:25

so, I went to Alaska for two

1:24:27

days, that was a really long

1:24:30

trip for two days, and I've got

1:24:32

Santa Rosa coming up. Last year, we were

1:24:35

given the honor of celebrating

1:24:37

Charles Schultz's 100th birthday, what would have been his

1:24:39

100th birthday. We did a skates eliminate

1:24:42

in the show there, which was really great to be

1:24:44

in his rink and do all that. We're going

1:24:46

back again next month, and

1:24:48

then I've got my signature event in Nashville on

1:24:50

November 19th. We do live country music,

1:24:52

and this year it's country music, with

1:24:55

Nathan Chen's coming in, and all our Olympic

1:24:57

skaters are coming in to skate to live music.

1:25:00

It's unbelievable

1:25:02

when you mix live, iconic

1:25:04

music, like Trace Adkins, Jodie

1:25:06

Messina, Deena Carter, Steve Warner, the

1:25:09

front men, they're all coming in to do their big songs

1:25:11

from the 90s. And 90s

1:25:13

country was changed, country music forever,

1:25:16

and now we get to celebrate that with

1:25:18

our skaters, and hopefully raise a

1:25:20

ton of resource for cancer

1:25:23

research. And we do events

1:25:26

and we take donations. We have a fund

1:25:28

called the 1984 Fund, where

1:25:30

people can come and sign up and donate $19.84 a month.

1:25:34

And that's really- Is that a call back to Sarajevo

1:25:37

or well? Yeah, 1984

1:25:40

was the year, that was my podium,

1:25:42

and now it's my platform. Hey,

1:25:45

that's not bad.

1:25:47

Yeah, yeah, the marketing now too. A

1:25:49

podium to a platform. And by

1:25:51

the way, I didn't even ask you about this. We're

1:25:53

so out of time, but you mentioned music

1:25:55

right at the top of this thing. I

1:25:58

don't write the music, I don't do the- costumes,

1:26:00

I don't do this, I don't do that, but I remember

1:26:03

your 84 short form and

1:26:06

it was such a weird

1:26:09

mix. It was music, it was

1:26:11

spoken word, it was like,

1:26:13

I don't know, it was just

1:26:15

a bully a base of sound

1:26:18

and you danced to it beautifully.

1:26:21

I'm just going to guess music is a big part of your

1:26:23

life. I

1:26:26

was kind of my best friend all the years I was training

1:26:29

and so now I've gotten to through

1:26:32

all our shows that we do, we do live music skating

1:26:34

shows, through all of them I've gotten to work with

1:26:36

so many of my heroes. I invited

1:26:39

Jonathan Kane to do the show and he

1:26:41

called me the week up and he said, hey, and I go,

1:26:44

oh no, please don't tell me he's going to cancel.

1:26:46

And he goes, hey, I was talking to Neil Sean

1:26:49

about this and I

1:26:51

go, oh Neil, yeah that

1:26:53

journey and I go, oh I hope

1:26:55

Neil didn't object to him doing this and

1:26:57

he goes, Neil wants to come. And I

1:27:00

was like,

1:27:01

okay.

1:27:04

I might have just wet my pants a little bit but

1:27:06

so Neil comes and they're

1:27:08

doing Don't Stop Believing and I'm standing on

1:27:10

stage right and Neil turns

1:27:14

and that guitar lick at the beginning of Don't Stop,

1:27:16

and he turns and he looks

1:27:17

square at me

1:27:20

and he leans in and he plays that

1:27:23

whole thing to me.

1:27:25

And I was like, Lord, take me now

1:27:28

because it doesn't get any

1:27:30

better than this, you know, but it's every

1:27:33

genre. It's been remarkable and there

1:27:35

people walk out and they'll say, why didn't you tell me?

1:27:37

This is amazing. I go, I

1:27:39

did tell you but unless you're there

1:27:42

you talk to me. Something you got to see. You

1:27:44

got to see. Something you got to see. Like your

1:27:46

podcast, some things you got to see.

1:27:48

Like you driving a Zamboni. One day

1:27:51

that's what I want to see. That's

1:27:54

what I want to see. I can't thank you enough Mike.

1:27:56

You're a good man. You're a good man. Don't

1:27:58

hang up. We got to make sure all of your brilliance

1:28:00

uploads properly, but this will officially

1:28:02

end another episode brought to you

1:28:04

by Max Hamilton. Adios.

1:28:09

This episode is over now.

1:28:12

I hope it was worthwhile. Sorry

1:28:15

it went on so long,

1:28:17

but if it made you smile,

1:28:22

then share your satisfaction

1:28:25

in the way that people

1:28:27

do. Take

1:28:30

some time to go

1:28:33

online and leave

1:28:36

us a review.

1:28:45

I hate to ask, I hate to beg, I

1:28:47

hate to be a nudge, but in this world

1:28:49

the advertisers really like to judge.

1:29:21

Yes,

1:29:23

please? Pop

1:29:32

into your local Dunkin'. Price and participation

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may vary. Limited time

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offer. Time supply.