EP31: What I learned from the creator of Gumball 3000 about dedication and vision

What does it really take to build something that lasts? After my fascinating conversation with Maximilian Cooper, founder of Gumball 3000, I felt compelled to share the powerful insights that resonated most with me about consistency, community-building, and turning passion into global impact.

Twenty-six years of unwavering dedication has transformed Gumball 3000 from a car rally into one of the world's most recognizable lifestyle brands. Max's journey – from fashion student to model to race car driver to visionary entrepreneur – demonstrates the power of staying true to your vision through challenges. Despite the glamorous appearance, Gumball didn't generate profits for its first three years, yet Max persisted. This mirrors my own experience with Basketball Nation, where consistency through difficulties has been crucial to our growth.

What makes Gumball truly special isn't just luxury vehicles but its ability to unite people across traditional boundaries. The events bring together hedge fund managers, skateboarders, world leaders, entrepreneurs and creatives in a shared space of passion. This concept of community as "future building" is transformative – when people rally around shared values, they create structures that can ultimately reshape nations. Through Basketball Nation and our expanding network of sports media initiatives, we're similarly committed to connecting people across continents through the universal language of sports.

The conversation with Max has expanded my vision for what's possible when you persistently nurture community and refuse to quit at the first obstacle. If you haven't already, I encourage you to watch the full interview with Maximilian Cooper and explore our other episodes as we continue building a global platform that connects, inspires, and creates lasting impact. Subscribe, comment, and join us on this journey!

Chapters

• 0:00 Reflecting on Maximilian Cooper's Journey
• 3:00 Consistency Through Challenges
• 7:10 Connecting with Industry Leaders
• 10:35 Community as Future Building
• 15:10 Creating a Global Lifestyle Brand

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:19

I need your love and guys. I wanted to do this recording today because I pretty much had an idea after an amazing conversation with our previous guest, maximilian Cooper, founder of Gumball 3000, and I thought to myself I always like to have conversations around the guests that I speak to because it's always quite inspirational speaking to a lot of them and we do get a lot of nuggets from them as well. And for me, sometimes I can speak to that kingdom come and basically because I just enjoy what I do, and so I realized that, oh, maybe there's not always a lot of people I can speak to about this and I'm excited about it, so let me speak to you guys that would like to watch this anyway. So what I wanted to do is kind of start off this way and see what, see what it's like, see if you guys enjoy it, and then, yeah, we go from there. So for me, this is almost like a review. So I'm going to be doing this, moving forward for all our guests coming up as well, as well as obviously starting off with the episode 30 with Maximilian Cooper. And, yeah, we're here today, as you can see the logo, the drinks. We're here in Red Bull London, in the studio, in the space where we do our recording. And, yeah, it's been an honour to be here. Thank you, red Bull, for allowing us to use this amazing space.

Speaker 1: 1:42

And one of the things for me that I've always kind of, really kind of seen through my journey is to do with a lot of consistency as well, and one of the things that I really got from that conversation with Max was how consistent he has been for the last 26 years. So 26 years this September is going to be the 26th gumball 3000 um across different amazing cities, um, some amazing drives, amazing cars, etc. And for me, the fact that he's been able to stick to this since 1999, and not even just from that alone, it's just from his whole journey um from living home at 18 to come to l London to studying fashion and going through that, to becoming a model and going through that and then becoming a race driver as well and going through that and just constantly being consistent, constantly growing, constantly elevating and constantly being creative along the journey as well, which has led to what he's kind of built now, to what he's kind of built now one of the biggest lifestyle brands in the world that revolves around not just cars, but community, family passion and also a love for something that a lot of people do have around the world, which is a love for cars. If I was to ask pretty much a lot of you what's your favourite car, you you would definitely have one. Even if you're not someone that drives or can drive, you always have a favourite car and I think it's so amazing to use that as a tool and as a resource to really kind of bring people together. And it's not just wealthy people, but it's people from all walks of life. You're talking about people that run hedge funds, people that are skaters, people that are football players, rappers, um, um, leaders of nations, um, entrepreneurs, business owners, um, so all those people, creatives, designers. Like it's amazing when you kind of see bringing all, see all these people coming together and, um, just being able to have an experience together but then also kind of giving back to the community through their journeys as well.

Speaker 1: 3:50

And yeah, a lot of that stuff really stuck out to me, even like the stories of myself when I know, when I started even this podcast or started Basketball Nation, I know the kind of struggles that were going to come with it, but I never expected how hard they were going to be, and for me to be able to kind of like see my leader, pastor Toby, being able to kind of like go through his struggles and his hurdles and his process as well, made me realise, oh wow, I can actually get over this as well, and staying consistent within that space also that obviously I've been caught to, and it it wasn't just seeing him, but I started to see some of my guests as well. Like Maximilian, he's gone through a stage where for the first three years, gumball wasn't making any money but it looked so glamorous and he made sure that he was putting his all into it and just being able to have that sort of grit and that dedication to something that most people would have pretty much maybe have felt like, oh, it was never going to last this long, or people that may have doubted him, but he still kind of like blocked out all the noise and just kept going. And maybe there are times where certain things may have not worked but he still found a way around it. And it kind of resonates with my stage as well. Um, in terms of like there was times when I couldn't do, um, the free basketball sessions, I couldn't engage with the community, um, the way I wanted to. So I had to find different ways to stay consistent, even now with this podcast.

Speaker 1: 5:25

There are times where maybe I've been contacting guests and guests aren't coming, like responding back as quickly as they need to or as we would like to sorry, not as they need to, as we would like to, and okay, cool, like that's. That's normal. People have other things they're doing. They don't want to just decide, oh yes, I'm going to come on the podcast and stuff like that. Like, people can be busy and we understand that and people can also say no, we understand that as well. So during that time, what can we do?

Speaker 1: 5:50

So we use those times to really kind of like, do things like this conversation that we're having now and think of a of other innovative ways that we can actually keep connected with people, um, which is why, as coach david, or the name that was given to me, um, by pretty much people within the community, um, because that's how they saw me as a leader, as a, as a coach, someone that can have some sort of effect, impact in their life um, I've just thought you know what this can be also a brand that we can actually use to still connect with people. So, as much as we can have the guests, I can also be that person that can actually just speak to you guys and you guys can get to know me as well and know how I think and how I see things as well. Um, so like when I, when I spoke to maximilian, so first of all, how I even got to connect with maximilian, so, um, let's take a breather. And then so there's a break between, okay, that first section was a section okay, okay, cool, cool, okay, cool, okay, yeah. So when you're ready, just continue. So, yeah, so when I just to kind of tell you a story, how I even contacted Max as well.

Speaker 1: 7:09

I was out for dinner with the missus, with the wife, and for me, our conversations are always about what's next, how do we keep growing, how do we support the community that we're part of, how do we elevate the community and help grow the community to become what it's meant to be? And that way the conversation came about that, okay, this is the kind of people that we should now get on the podcast and really kind of delve into a conversation with them. And that night I was like, yeah, of course, definitely. Um. So I emailed max, max um, I will one day um show or teach how I am able to contact a lot of my guests. I emailed Max and literally within I believe it was like maybe four hours, five hours we were able to connect via email and he really had an interest in the basketball space because of what they're doing over at Gumball at the moment and that's how we connected and also guys, especially a lot of people that you want to speak to, like sometimes it may not be straight away.

Speaker 1: 8:14

I think I connected with Max maybe beginning of this year and we only did a recording a few weeks back and that was me pretty much not giving up. Sometimes, when people respond, it's not the end of the world, it's not the last thing that you're just relaxed. You have to still be able to cater to them them especially their time and also be patient as well. So that's something that I've learned over time just to be patient and we, just from me, just constantly communicating, we were able to have that podcast happen, which was a success, and people are still listening, people are still watching and for for me, I also realised that he's also been through that same journey and a lot of great leaders go through that journey as well, where they they take time to build something that's sustainable. They don't just quit on the first issue or the first problems.

Speaker 1: 9:07

Like, if you look at, like even with my mentor, my leader, like what he's built in the last 20 years and how he stayed consistent over the years and we've seen the growth in it as well. You can hear some of my previous episodes where I really speak and dive into about him as well. In it as well, you can hear some of my previous episodes where I really speak and dive into about him as well. Um, it's a testament to kind of like the kind of person he is and what, how dedicated he is to a vision that he's um, that he's that we're building basically um, and that that also kind of like linked that old conversation with max and I really enjoyed that conversation because it kind of resonated with so much with that story, that journey as well, because for him, 26 years being consistent and still giving back to the community, so he's not just sitting down, um, making money, he's actually also impacting his community, impacting lives, but also connecting people together and that's what it's all about. Like, um, there's no sort of. So there's no such thing as gatekeeping, there's no such thing as, oh, because you're from this background, I'm I can't speak to you because you're from that background, I'm scared to speak to you. No, it's everyone coming together and actually being a part of something. That's quite, that's quite important. And that community is such a big thing and it takes into takes me back into the whole community space and I think community I've always called it future building, and future building is really like the impact a community can make to nations, to society, to change, to culture, like it's so important.

Speaker 1: 10:39

I was watching something recently and it was speaking about how like I think it was I don't know, no, it wasn't, I wasn't watching anything, I apologize. I went for a walk with some of my brothers it was like just over an hour walk in central London and we went to Chinatown and we were thinking, wow, like there isn't. You can have like places like Chinatown. Maybe in the States you can have like places like Little Haiti and all this sort of little communities there, but you never ever see anything to do with like Little Nigeria or Little Africa or African town and stuff like that. You don't see those type of things and I always wondered why, and I realised that it's a lack of community.

Speaker 1: 11:26

I always wondered why, and I realised that it's a lack of community, like a lot of a lot of people don't? There's a lot of communities that actually haven't been birthed yet. We may see the running clubs, we may see the basketball communities, the football communities, but we have diverse communities, communities that don't just focus on maybe sports or maybe certain activities, games that we like, but actual nation-taking communities. And the community that I'm part of now is one of those communities, a nation-taking community which consists of not just Africans or Caribbeans, but all people. But it just made me curious why something like that wasn't around, because even in Chinatown, it's not just Chinese people there, there's a whole load of people from different backgrounds, and I thought to myself that community is actually future building.

Speaker 1: 12:07

Future building eventually ends up taking over nations, and nation building should always be something that's at the forefront of our mind. And how do we do that? By bringing a group of people together for one cause and to have one vision. And when you look at a platform like, or a platform or family or community which I hope max allows me to call it like gumball. You can see that that's, that's a, that that is a nation-taking platform, because you're bringing now, connecting now, some leaders of nations with, maybe a skateboarder or someone that has a football community or, um, a nation, um, uh, entrepreneur with someone that can actually, um, help invest into that person's business, that grows it to a certain level or exponentially scales it to a certain level.

Speaker 1: 12:57

So it may not look like that at first. It may look fancy because of all the cars and lamborghinis and stuff like that, but really the depth of it is what that is, um, so yeah, so it was quite interesting to really kind of like connect with him, have a conversation with him and kind of see his own passion to what he does and his dedication as well, and even just even having the little interest in what I do. Um, we've not done, we've only been doing what we're doing for, let's say, boss missions. The longest thing we've been doing that's free. That's three years in june, so three years and like in next month basically, and for me it's almost like there's still a journey to still go, to go through. It's still a long way to go, like we haven't even touched the surface yet, but to be able to have a conversation with someone like himself and he has an interest in what we do and seeing what we do as inspiring and like impactful as well Just shows that we're on a good track trajectory and on a good track as well. So, yeah, that's pretty much what I wanted to share. There isn't anything that I would say that kind of like didn't resonate with me.

Speaker 1: 14:02

I think a lot of the stuff that we spoke about was quite strong. Even the relationships that he has was quite interesting to see. For example, the likes of Dennis Rodman, ralph Lauren, joe Germani, and even really having that fashion journey. I think was quite interesting for me because it's almost kind of like similar to myself growing up and really being into fashion and from fashion I decided you know what? I've been a stylist. I've worked with some of the biggest stylists in the world. I've been able to assist some of those stylists. I've been able to kind of dress some amazing artists as well. I've done some magazine shoots as well, but then also done some being able to transition from that into sports but also still bringing those skills here and there, especially the creative side, has been quite beneficial coming from that fashion background and seeing that he had the same thing that he's also transferred into Gumball was quite interesting that I could actually connect with him in that sense.

Speaker 1: 15:09

There's one story that he did mention on how G, on how, um, how Gumball is. He wanted to create a lifestyle brand, and a lifestyle brand doesn't just come with the car rally, it comes with like jackets, it comes with like um, um sports, like sports gear caps, um t-shirts, hoodies and I've been seeing a lot of them on social media which look amazingly cool Um stickers, um sneakers, all that kind of stuff. So he's building a whole lifestyle around the brand and I thought that was so key and kind of opened my eyes to how I can even kind of build what I'm building now to a better, more higher scale for the community as well. People that would obviously eventually connect with us across the world With what we do with MBuyon, the athletes, and Barcelona Nation and Nation Sports Association is never, ever just going to be in the UK.

Speaker 1: 15:59

It's definitely going to always be international, which is why I'm always like fully, fully like dedicated, connecting with people across the world, whether it's a photographer that's in Brazil or Thailand, whether it's a photographer that's in Brazil or Thailand, or it could be a stylist that's in, maybe, rwanda, or it could be someone that works in finance that's based in Singapore. We're always connecting with people because everyone always sort of has a sports background or a love for sports, so we always want to really delve into conversation, whether they're on the spot on the podcast or just a conversation via email. Conversation via Instagram is always so key to what we do, as well as, obviously, to becoming a global brand that has impact across the world as well, that I would say I really took from that interview and there's so much more. But I want you guys I can't give you guys everything, I can't give you guys my full thoughts, but this is to kind of get you guys to really go and watch the full episode again. Don't just watch some of it, but watch the full episode. Trust me, there's so much to get from it. And if you get a chance to and have some time, watch other episodes prior to episode 30 with max um.

Speaker 1: 17:13

But yeah, we're really grateful that you guys are continue to support us and continue to watch our content. More content like this will keep coming out and we do have other podcasts um that will be coming out from different um, individuals from our community, such as roland with reese, who will be releasing his podcast very soon, and then we'll have other people within our football space that will also be releasing as well. So watch this space as we continue to grow our network of media moguls and sports media individuals as well. So, yeah, it's been great speaking to you guys. As usual, don't forget to subscribe, don't forget to like comment, let us know what you think, let us know how we can improve, let us know how we can improve, let us know how can we always be better. But, yeah, it's been a pleasure speaking to you guys. Coach David out, take care, peace. Thanks for watching.