Conquer Your Fears: The Life-Changing Experience of Firewalking w/Dave Albin Ep 44

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Episode Description: We are changing the style, flow and direction of Transform Your Future. During this transition we are dropping unscripted unedited interviews with our guests.   In this episode host Eddie Isin welcomes firewalking expert Dave Albin, who shares his remarkable journey from fear to empowerment through the transformative practice of firewalking. Discover how this ancient ritual not only challenges physical limits but also serves as a profound metaphor for overcoming personal fears and achieving growth.

Key Takeaways:

• The Origins of Firewalking: Dave recounts his first exposure to firewalking during a Tony Robbins seminar, highlighting the initial fears and doubts he faced before participating.
• Fear as a Catalyst for Change: Learn how confronting fears head-on can lead to significant personal transformation, shifting perspectives on what is possible.
• Building Community: Dave emphasizes the sense of camaraderie and connection fostered through shared experiences, creating lasting bonds among participants.
• Helping Others: The conversation touches on the importance of giving back, particularly to veterans and first responders, through programs that incorporate firewalking to address mental health challenges.

Guest Information: Dave Albin is a firewalking expert and founder of Firewalk Productions. He has facilitated life-changing firewalking experiences for thousands, including corporate teams and individuals seeking personal growth. His mission is to empower others to conquer their fears and discover their true potential.

Resources Mentioned:

• Get my free course 8 ways to Supercharge Your Motivation and Crush Sales here  https://bit.ly/8supercharge.
• Dave Albin’s Firewalk Productions website - https://firewalkadventures.com/
• Victor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning - https://amzn.to/4e1lhT8

Join the Conversation: If you’re ready to conquer your fears and embark on a journey of personal growth, this episode is a must-listen! Tune in to discover how firewalking can transform your future.

Call to Action: Don’t forget to subscribe to Transform Your Future and leave a review! Share your thoughts on this episode and let us know how you plan to face your fears.

Subscribe to Transform Your Future Newsletter Where Eddie writes about personal development, reinvent & identity: http://transformyourfuture.com

Transcript

0:02

So welcome to Transform Your Future Podcast. Dave, I appreciate you. Thank you for spending some time with me. Let's jump right in and tell me what was it that attracted you and got you interested in Firewalking in the beginning? Well, I had gone through one of Tony's programs in 1988. Shortly after I got sober, I had insomnia, and I was up late one night, and there he was the infomercial king, right? And so I bought a program of his called Personal Power. And to date this Eddie, it came on little white things called cassette tapes, right? And so anyway, he sent 'em to me and I went through it, plugged them in, did what the man taught me to do, and it worked well. I ended up loaning that program to a friend of mine. And then seven years later in 1995, my buddy called me and said, Hey, Tony's coming to town, man, did you know? I said, no, man, I didn't have a clue. He goes, come on, man, you got to go with me. You got me into this. I said, yeah, no problem. I'd love to go see him. Let's do it. And so he goes, let me call you back. I'll, I'll take care of everything, right? It calls me back an hour later and he goes, done. We pick up the tickets that we'll call. Here's what they told us to do. Number one, drink a lot of water. You got to stay hydrated. It's a four day event. Number two, bring snacks. You are going to spend a lot of time in the room. And I only laugh because anybody that been to what Tony Robinson knows, you are going to spend a lot of time in the room, bring a good attitude and be ready to play full out. My buddy said, I said, sure, Dan, no problem. How much was the ticket? He said,$695 in 1995, right? I don't know. What's that worth today? Like 1.2 or 1.3 million, something crazy, right? Why Bitcoin? Right? So anyway, as he's getting ready to get off the phone, he goes, oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, stop, wait. Hey, almost left off. The most important part. He goes, we're going to be doing a fire walk. And my brain immediately said, oh, hell no. And you know what's interesting, Eddie? I don't know what that means. I have no references for a firewalk. I don't know what that means. I have no idea. However, the word fire and walk in the same sentence didn't sound like anything I was going to be doing, but I'm being subservient to my yeah, sure, Dan, sounds interesting. Okay, I'll see you then. Well, the big day comes and we get there along with 3,500 people, and the event started at two o'clock, or Tony took the stage at two o'clock in the afternoon. Well, the next thing I know, Eddie, it's after midnight. We've been in a room with Robins for 10 hours, bring snacks or you'll starve to death. No kidding. And so anyway, all of a sudden, Tony goes, take your shoes off. And I'm like, oh, no, no, pal, you're not tricking me. I see where you're going with that. I'm going to fall for that. Well, I got a problem. I'm in a room with 3,500 people and my buddy, guess what they're doing? Taking off their shoes, taking off their damn shoes, idiots. What's wrong with you? Are you really falling for this? And so the next thing you know, he's going to take us out in this giant parking lot where this firewalk is going to take place, right? And before he does that, he gets everybody to start clapping and chanting. So now you've got 3,500 people walking out there going, yes, yes, right? I'm walking out there going, no, ah, ain't going to happen. And when you get out there, Eddie, it gets worse because he's got African drummers. So now you get out there, it's the ambiance of the drums, and they're intense. It's all African. There's like nine of 'em, right? And it's dun, dun. It's like, you got to be kidding me, man. What a dog and pony show this is. Well, I made a decision when I took my shoes off, but I took 'em off of the idea. When I get out there, I'm not going to walk. I'm going to ditch my buddy, and I'm going to go hide in the back. That's my plan. That's my strategy. Sounds pretty good, right? Yeah. That's so much. Why? Well, Tony Robbins, why did Tony Robbins bring Firewalking into his events? And he did that because he knows it's one of the most life changing experiences any human would go through, period. He also knows there's people like me, and he knows that if he doesn't get to me, then we're all going to miss the paradigm shift then. I'm not alone. There's more people hiding in the back as well, right? Yeah. Well, again, so he trains some people to come find us. So I'm back there thinking I got it all figured out. Here goes this guy out of nowhere, and he gets, I dunno, maybe 15, 18 feet from me. And he looks at me and he's looking at me funny, like when a dog, here's a funny noise, right? And all of a sudden, the guy points at me, he goes, Hey man, are you okay? And when we're not okay, what do we say? Yeah, we're fine. I'm. Fine, fine. All good here, man. Nothing to see. Move along. I'm good. And he goes, right for the kill shot. He goes, he goes, Hey man, you're going to walk tonight? And I'm like, absolutely not. I'm, I'm thinking like, you idiot. What do you think? I'm hiding in the backboard. And the guy, he was kind of prepared for it, right? He was like, yeah, hey man, no problem. Hey, listen, very cool. We don't want you to do anything you don't want to do. And I went, oh, okay. I like this guy. He's going to get me out of here. No, he's not. He's setting me up because the next question he asked me, by the way, this is a perfect stranger. I don't know this guy to this day nothing. But without him, I'm not here right now with you. Ain't going to happen. So the question he asked me goes, well, hey man, wouldn't you at least like to watch? And I thought, well, yeah, sure, why not? Let's watch these idiots burn their feet off, no problem in that. And he says, well, listen, you can't see anything from back here, and I can't. I'm a hundred plus yards away. I can hear it. It's going crazy, right? People are chanting, they're still clapping. People are already firewalking. So when they get into the celebration end, they're jumping up and down, there's screaming with exhilaration. The drums are going, there's a giant fire over here in the corner. It's huge. I mean, that fire, that pit is probably 35 feet wide and 70 feet long. And what they do, how do they set this up logistically, is that they start that fire probably the same time. Tony took stage around two o'clock in the afternoon, and they just keep adding wood hardwood cord after cord after quarter of wood. And at the end of the night it renders. So you've got this big, giant, beautiful pile of blue coals, but what they do is they take steel wheelbarrows over to the bit and they load'em. They put all those coals in a wheelbarrow, and then they pull the wheelbarrow in between two lanes of sod of grass. They caught a fire lane, which is three feet wide, 15 to 18 feet long. And then they just take a flathead shovel from that wheelbarrow, and they sprinkle those coals on top of that fire lane, pat 'em down, and that's what you walk on. So eventually, again, he eventually convinces me to get in line, and I do, and I'm in line, and I'm kind of walking along and another stranger comes up to me, and this guy whispers in my ear. He said, he knows when you're ready. When he says, go, you go and pew. This guy just disappeared until the night. And I'm like, what do you mean? What does that mean? What do you mean he knows when you're ready? When he says go, you go, I don't know what that means. I'm not walking right? So it doesn't make any sense to me. So I'm cruising along. I'm kind of walking along again. I got a thousand people in front of me. I can't see anything. I can hear it. It's getting tense, it's getting louder. And I get to a point, Eddie, where I can see at an angle, they're over there and I can see them, and they're doing it every race, every creed, every color they are. And my brain is saying, why? What's wrong with them? Why would they do this? We're mammals. We we're taught to run from fire, not walk on it. So I'm kind of in a trance, right? Can't take my eyes off of it. And sorry about if you hear the jet that just went over. I live up in the Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina and Jets from Bragg, FAT. They come play over my house on a regular basis. So anyway, I'm just mesmerized by all that, and I'm not watching what's going on in front of me. And the next thing I know, boom, guess where I am. Front of the line. I'm at the front of the line and I'm like, how in the hell did I get here? Are you kidding me? And so now I'm looking down and I'm looking into the abyss. There's that fire lane, and you can see the coals. They're blowing bright red. There's no question. The wheelbarrows there, right? You can feel the heat coming off. So it got real, real fast. Well, as I'm staring into the abyss, there's a trainer standing right there, and all of a sudden the trainer goes eyes up, and all of a sudden he startles me and I pull my eyes up, and now my eyes are up. Well, when I was in a room for 10 hours with Tony, guess what he teaches you to do your eyes up. Don't stare at what you fear. I want you to focus on the other end, the celebration end where the reward is. So now my eyes are up, and the trainer goes, squeeze your fist and say, yes. And I went, yes. And he went stronger. And I went, yes. And so he could tell I was leaving a lot on the table. I was not in a peak state, and he knew it. So he got in my face and screamed at me stronger. Now I'm picked off. I threw my hands in the air and I said, yes. And he goes, no, go. Go. I took off. Remember the guy? He knows when you're ready. When he says go, you go. I did. Well, here's the first thing I learned about Firewalking. When you take the first step, oh, you'll take the second, third, fourth, and fifth, I promise you. So they position two guys at the end of the fire lane, Eddie, and they lock arms. And the reason they do that is they catch you. And they're like, stop. Wipe your feet and celebrate. So I've stopped and I'm wiping my feet. And first off, I thought I burned myself, but I did. My feet are dirty. There's no burns, no one else is burned either, right? You got thousands of people fire walking and nobody's getting burned. The coals are a thousand degrees. This is real, but nobody's getting burned, and I have no clue. I mean, I firewalk, but I don't know how I did it. And literally in that moment, no question, you think you can do anything? It is so exhilarating. It's like, okay, hey, so what are we going to do now? I know. Let's get on the bus. Let's go to Everest. Let's go climb the mountain, right? Because really, it's exhilarating. And this is all going down at midnight, one o'clock in the morning after being in a room with him for 10, 12 hours. But here's where it gets interesting into your question. How did I get into this was the next day. So this is a four day event. That was day one, that night of, and now we're going into day two. So we're all in the foyer getting ready to go into the venue, and I'm watching all the people, and I've never seen or experienced anything like it in my life. It was so beautiful. It was magical watching the night before. We didn't know each other. We didn't care that next morning. It was like we all knew each other personally. I'm watching everybody and they're talking and they're communicating at a really high vibrational level. They're hugging, they're crying, they're talking about the fire walk, they're talking about their fears. I mean, it was so beautiful. Again, I've never seen anything like it other than a Robin's event. And so later in the event I met one of Tony's trainers, a guy by the name of Ted Macy, super, super sweet guy. Him and his wife Mary, were both trainers for Tony at the time. And so I'm just talking to Ted, like, Hey, I get to talk to one of Tony's trainers. Really cool, right? Well, I asked him, I said, so are you in this environment all the time? And he goes, yeah, several times a year. And they go, this must be really awesome to be in this environment. He goes, oh, yeah. He goes, as a matter of fact, you see those people standing over there with the black shirts and the pink writing? I'm like, yeah, why? He goes, they're volunteers, man. They're just like you. They came here, loved it. Want to come back and give back. So here's what you could do when you get home. Call Robin's research, ask 'em for a volunteer crew application. They'll send you one. Fill it out, send it back. Maybe I'll see you here. Sure enough, nine weeks after I filled out that application, it came in the mail and it said, Dave Alvin, congratulations. You've been selected the crew with the Anthony Rockets company. Well, you got to be kidding me, man. So there I was, man. I was in the environment as a volunteer crew member. Now, when you fill out the application, you give 'em a lot of information. They knew I had a military background. They knew I had a security background. They knew I lived on a farm. They kind of assumed that I might know how to use tools and how to run a log splitter and the difference between, oh, Kiery and Locust and Hardwood versus Softwoods, right? And how to make kindling and all this. And they were right. So they ended up putting me on the fire team, and they put me on the security team to help take care of Tony's celebrities, which was Eddie. We could do a whole podcast on just that part of my career with Robins. So this was all going down in 95 and 96. Then they made me a subcontractor, because when you're volunteer, you have to pay your way. My wife at the time wasn't real happy. The mother of my children was not happy with this because I'm spending 1500 bucks, $2,000 every time I go to one of these events. She had no idea who Tony was. All she knew was what I told her, some motivational guy. And so I'm dumping a couple thousand bucks every time, rightfully so, she didn't like it, and I don't blame 'em. Well, then when they promoted me to a subcontractor to work for the organization, they started paying my way and they gave me a free ticket. So I brought her and she went through the event, and when she graduated, we were out walking on the beach late at night, Fort Lauderdale, I'll never forget. And she looked at me, she goes, okay, I get it. I drank the Kool-Aid. This guy's a badass man. If you want to roll with him and you want to run around the world, as long as you're making money and we don't have to pay for it anymore, you have my blessing. And that opened the door. And then in 2003, after being promoted to the assistant fire, captain Robins offered me the captain's position. And what that meant was that I would take over all of Tony's fire walks globally. I told him too though, I go, I have a challenge. I have a conflict because I homeschool my kids. And Robin stepped right up. They said, Hey, you homeschool. What if we did this? What if we pay to have your kids go on the road with us? Would that make a difference? Yeah, right. Can you imagine? My daughter was six years old. My son was nine years old. In their very first event, Eddie was Sydney, Australia. Wow. So yeah, they went on the road with their mom and dad and Tony. And Tony loved my kids. He just loved them. He adored them, and he spent time with 'em when he could, and he always would interact with 'em. And again, Tony Robbins treated my family like gold. So that all went down. In 2003, 2005, we went to London, we set the world record. That's where we walked 12,300 people. And I do want to disclose so that your viewers and your audience knows Guinness Book of World Record was not there. However, but you know what? That's the biggest fire walk in our planet's history. There's never been one anywhere close to that. In fact, the only thing that comes close is another Robins event at 10,000 or 9,000, whatever. So that went down in 2005, and then 2014, my life was forever changed again. I'm driving down the road and my phone rings, and it's Google, and Google's like, Hey, you're the Dave Albin that does the firewalk for Tony Robbins. I'm like, yeah, what can I do for you? Well, if you're not under any contractual obligation or non-compete, we'd like to talk to you about hiring you. I'm like, well, all righty then. Well, homeboy's a free agent. What you got? And the next thing I know, I'm being hired by Google. The next thing I know, Google's telling me that I should start my own business. Literally, one of the executives pulled me aside and said, Hey, Dave, I don't know if you know this or not, but man, you might want to think about taking process, this experience out to the world. They said, corporate Amer, be all over you. Look at us. We came and found you. And I'm like, whoa, okay. Google's telling me I should start my own business. Maybe I should listen to it. And I did. So Firewalk Productions was born in 2014, and they were right shortly after I launched. Next thing I know, I was at NASA and then Notre Dame and then Virginia Tech, and then Max and Microsoft and Heineken and YMCA, I mean, since 2014 since we opened, no pun intended, but we've been going hot and heavy ever since. That's great. So tell me a little bit about, I guess first on a personal level. You mentioned that it was such an incredible experience Tell me a little bit more about how could you explain that so that somebody else could kind of understand the actual transformation that happened? Well, the Firewalk itself is spectacular. If we go back in history, let's take it away from the West and away from Tony Robbin for a minute and put it back where it came from. Fire walking has been around for a thousand years. And so if you look at different cultures around the world, like the physicians, the people of India, the people of India have been using this for hundreds of years, and they use it as a rite of passage. They still do. So when a young boy graduates into manhood, or when a girl graduates into womanhood, when babies are born, the mother will firewalk them. They do it for weddings, they do it for ceremonial purposes, they use it for all kinds of purposes, and so do other cultures. The Polynesians, the Hawaiians, the Native American Indians up here where I live in the Appalachian Mountains, the Cherokees used Firewalking, the Indu Europeans. What's cool about the Indu Europeans is the women, when the men were going to have to go into war, had to go into battle. The night before the battle, the women would build a fire and do everything with it, and they would bring all kinds of offerings, meaning they would put sage into the fire, they would put cornmeal things in the woods, Sage again, all this kind of stuff, really, really cool tobacco. And so they would build the fire, get everything ready. Then the men would firewalk that night, and that's how the women would send their men into battle via the firewalk. And it was to keep 'em safe. It was to keep them the unity within the tribe. In fact, if you didn't, weren't allowed to go in the battle, which would dishonor your family, the people of Portugal, the people with Spaniards, it's all over. Most people in the West, the only thing they know is what Tony Robbins has done. The one that really, I don't want to say he brought it to the West because it was another individual that you and I spoke about, Tali Kinan. He actually taught Tony how to do it, but Tony made it famous for sure. I told you I read his book Extreme Spirituality a long time ago and was very impacted by it. That's why I brought 'em up to you. Yeah, so that's interesting. That's interesting. And just want to comment that I've been thinking lately in my writing that I'm writing. I just have this idea, the rituals are so important in society, and yet in typical western society, we don't have many of them anymore. And I just think we need to have some kind of movement to put the rituals. Back in the eighties, late eighties, early nineties, I think there was a real movement, especially for men in the men's movement in the world where there were sweat lodges and drum circles and different things to ritualize this journey of the man. I just think we need more of that kind of stuff. Well, I couldn't agree more. A hundred percent. Well, interesting. You don't know this, and so I'll share it with you. A few months ago, I was on another podcast, and so we recorded the show and then her and I, Natalia were talking sidebar after. And she goes, so David, let me ask you something. Have you ever done a Firewalk for Veterans? And I said, you mean specifically? And she said, yeah. And I go, no, why? What's going on? And she said, well, we have 300 vets and we have a real problem in the world with suicide for them. And I go, yeah, I heard a number like 22 a day. She goes, no, that's not true. That may be what the media wants you to think, but it's much higher than that because that's only if they leave a note. And so she goes, it could be very easily in the high forties to 50 a day. And so I'm a vet, grew up during the Vietnam era. My dad, my father that raised me was a highly decorated vet in World War ii, career military, army National Guard officer. So when she told me this, I was like, it just clicked. I knew that after three decades of doing this, I knew that that was a direction that I wanted to go in. So I said, look, can you give me a couple days to think this through? Because there's a lot going on here. And she said, yeah, absolutely. So I went to bed that night, Betty and I woke up in the middle of the night and it was clear as a bell operation, do no harm. Now here's the other thing that clicked at the same time, yes, vets, there's a high suicide rate there, but there's other categories of people that need our help as well. So I came up with first responders. There's a real high suicide rate specifically amongst firefighters, though police officers do it too. But a lot of firefighters take their own life. And it's similar to what happens with military because of their purpose, and it dies off once they're not hanging around the fire station. Or, let me back up. Why would a veteran take their life? Well, okay, so they join the military, they're trained to kill, they get deployed, they get over there, and they're working together as a unit, and they're all keeping each other alive. So there's a high level of purpose associated with that. And so there they are every day. And the next thing you know that day it's coming and they all dread it. And that's when they have to go home. And so when they go home, it all goes away. They're not having to keep each other alive. They're fragmented, they're not hanging out, they're not eating together, not sleeping together. They're not moving as a unit anymore. And so what happens? Depression sets in and then the next thing you know, they reach for alcohol or drugs and boom, man, we lose them. The other two categories, by the way, are obviously vets as high first responders, single moms and kids that have been abused and neglected. And so back to kind of ties in, if you will, Eddie, with your question about fire walking in and of itself, the Rite of passage is part of that. And so I was on another podcast with Ed Perico and Ed, he's the head, he's the president of the Sunshine Rotary Club in Modesto, California. And he's a vet. So he said, so Dave, if my rotary hires you, come to Modesto and let's put on an event for first responders and vets. And so we did that on April 12th and 13th. And the cool thing is we had a whole bunch of sponsors show up C3 insurance, incredible company out of San Diego. They do a ton of work for veterans. They stepped up through a mutual friend. My buddy Dave Sanderson brought C3 in. Dave Sanderson was the last passenger off flight 1549 US Air Miracle on the Hudson. So he started doing a lot of work with first responders, right? Then he started working with vets. He started swimming. It is funny because the Navy Seals swam the Hudson every year, and they invited Dave to come swimming. Oh, he crash landed into it. So they said, we want you to swim with us, but you're going to have to do some training there, big boy. And so he did. He trained for six months just to be able to swim with those guys. And so he got involved with that. And then the American Weed Company, I'm wearing their logo right here. They approached me and said, Hey, we want to be involved. We're doing a lot of work with veterans and first responders when it comes to PTSD and depression and cannabis. And so they came on board, the Zippo Lighter company. These are my guys, man, if you're going to do a fire walk, why not get there? It is. There it is, right? Operation Juno Harm, this is Ray's lettering. You can feel it. It's raised up, made a beautiful lighter that we gave to everybody that attended. And so also the Essential Oil company, they made a blend for us so that we use it for anchoring. So yeah, so we did our first event and it was really spectacular. And yeah, it was wonderful. So they've already scheduled us to come back next year in April, 2025, we're going to go back and do another one for vets. And so now it's interesting. Everything kind of shifted for me. Corporate America has been really, really good to me. I mean, I've been hired by some of the top biggest companies in the world, and it's been an awesome, make no mistake about it. But now there's kind of a shift here because now corporate America can come in and do two things. One, you wanted a firewalk already, right? Maybe you're launching a product or maybe you needed to build up morale, dissensions going on because people are fighting over things like, I don't know, maybe mask or maybe vaccines or the political stance and all that. Well, business doesn't care because if your people are fighting, they're not getting along, production's going to go in the toilet. And if the CEO EO doesn't fix it, what happens? They find the CEO, who will. So, you know what I mean? So I get hired for all those kinds of reasons. Well, now it gets even better. It gets even sweeter. So we're going to take operation, do no harm, a 5 0 1 3 make the company now the corporation. We can come to their city and they can make a donation to operation, do no harm operation, do no harm, will hire Firewalk Productions. Firewalk Productions comes in and does all the work, all the heavy lifting. And we can take that corporation and make them look not only incredible in front of all their employees, but we can make 'em look really incredible in front of their community, that city or county or wherever there are. And then the next, we do it on a Saturday. Well, Monday morning when all the employees come to work, guess what? They all played a role in doing what? Saving 300 veterans and first responders or moms or kids or whatever's lives. That creates an amazing bond and community. And they got to do the firewalk themselves. So it's really an opportunity, and I don't know that there's anyone else out there creating anything like this. So it's a double whammy for them. So they can raise morale and they can also make their brand look really, really good in front of their community by coming in and supporting operation due to harm. That's fantastic, Dave. That's really great. And of course it also fits in line with the consciousness today in the world of corporations being more socially responsible and doing things for their community. Absolutely. A hundred percent. So tell me about the team building aspects. I know in many ways corporations and organizations would hire you because they wanted to boost team morale and team communication and whatnot. Tell me a little bit about how it's the number one team building experience. Well, that became clear to me. The first evidence of that for me is when I did my first firewalk, right? When we came in the next day for day two, I was in that foyer and I was watching all these people, we were all strangers the night before. And that next day, we all acted like we knew each other my entire life. So I knew there was some kind of connectivity because before. And it didn't dawn on me until later that that connection is what everybody's looking for, the morale and comradery and really just the brother sisterhood of experiencing something that spectacular. So once I got into the Robins world and I started crewing and I started seeing thousands and thousands of people fire walking, I saw the same thing. There they are. There's that moment of reckoning, man. They're standing there in front of that fire lane, they're looking down. Those coals are bright red. And then there's this very definitive moment, and they break through it, and they walk and within four seconds, their whole life changes because fear is everything. We know this in the corporate world, they know this. They know that what doesn't challenge you, doesn't change you. It's not going to happen. So now when you can take your entire crew, and that crew could be, I don't know, three, it could be 30, it could be 300, it could be 3000. It doesn't make any difference. All of a sudden now they just played together and completely off the chart. The other thing that I do, Eddie, just so you know, in addition to the firewalk, I do the board break. So this is a martial arts move. And so what we do is we give 'em the boards and then I have 'em write something on front of the board they want to move towards. I have 'em write something on back of the board. They need to move away from, I have 'em write anybody's name on the board. They're in conflict with, right? So a forgiveness and reconciliation as part of that relationship. It's over tonight. Stop. You're going to give it to the fire here in a few minutes. And then to create the right of passage, what we do is we take the board and I have 'em write anybody's name on the board that they've lost. So if we do have military and first responders, they could put that person's name on the board, and I invite them to bring their energy to this rite of passage ceremony tonight. So then we take 'em out in the parking lot, we show 'em how to do it, they break the board, we circle 'em. Then they get to go throw their board in the fire, and obviously we're having photographs taken of that. There's video of that. So they'll have it. And then after they fire walk, I put 'em in a circle and I do what's called the circle hub. And so what I do is I say, alright, I want you to look across the circle and find someone that you don't know and make eye contact with them. Now I want you to go to that person and stand two feet in front of them. So everybody goes, and now they're standing in front And I'm like, okay, so I'm going to show you how to do a heart hug. Normally we hug this way. I want you to do it the other way. I want your heart to be on top of that person's heart that you're so now close your eyes. And then I have 'em take three diaphragmatic deep diaphragmic breaths. And typically what happens, Eddie, as soon as they go into or come out of that second breath, guess what happens? Their hearts calibrate. So they all start beating. They all start beating together. So then I'll do that a few times, and the next thing I know, I've got the entire team, the entire group, and their hearts are all beating at the same time. So when you level up and you shift the vibrational frequency of somebody at that level, it creates a new bond. It creates a new comradery. The fact that maybe, oh, well, he wore a mask and he didn't. It goes away. No one gives a shit anymore because we've superseded that with something absolutely incredibly magical. It's kind of like a near death experience that you would go through with somebody, right? There's a bond there. And so it's close to that. It may not quite that, but it levels up. So when you raise somebody's vibration like that in their frequency and their belief system, because most people when they're looking at a fire walk, what does fear mean to them? Forget everything and run. Where now after the firewalk, and you do that, we didn't plan a new question. The question is, so now that you've walked on fire, what else can you do? So now instead of fear being forget everything and run, it's space, everything and run. Whereas we like to say in aa, in Alcoholics Anonymous, false images appearing real. Because I know for me, up until my firewalk, almost every decision I made in And I came to learn that fear's a liar. Fear took a lot of things away from me. It lied to me all the time. This was going to happen. That's not going to happen. Don't ask her to dance. She's going to tell you No, you'll be the embarrassment of the school. I mean, just, you know what I mean? Those voices in our heads are so influenced. And so again, we learn the fears, we don't overcome, become our limits. And that's really, that's the spectacle, man. That is the sweet spot with the firewalk because now it changes and it shifts that limiting belief to more of what's possible. Yeah, that's fantastic. I get that. I get that. And so how would somebody experience this in some way? Well, first of all, you're going to have to hire somebody that knows what they're doing. You just can't go throw a bunch of wood into a pit somewhere, and next thing you know, you're going to walk on it. You get people, you can get hurt really bad. The wood has to be the right kind of wood. It has to be seasoned. You have to burn it for a certain amount of time. There's a lot going on. So the bottom line is that's why people hire me. They go to my website and then they look at us and they go, wow, okay, this is the guy that Tony Robbins used, so he might know what he's doing. Oh yeah, he's been hired by Google and nasa, Notre Dame, and on and on and on. So they get it. There's a tremendous amount of credibility there. So that's why they reach out to me. The other thing that I've done is I have an academy that I run every year in October. As I said earlier, I live up here in the Appalachian Mountains in the northwestern part of the state of North Carolina. I'm about two hours northwest of Charlotte from Charlotte Airport. And then if anybody knows where Boone, North Carolina is, which is where Appalachian State University is, I'm about 25 minutes west of App State. So we border Ash County where I live Borders, Tennessee and Virginia. So we're in that top corner. So like my cabin, I'm sitting here at 3,500 feet above sea level. So it's very clean, clean air, clean water. It's a beautiful place. The Blue Ridge Parkway is right here in my backyard. And so we do the academy up here every year. And the academy is people that come to me and want to learn how to create these life-changing paradigm shift experiences. So we teach 'em the fire walk, we teach 'em the glass, lock the board, break the brick, break the arrow, break the rebar, bend, all these other experiences so that they can take those experiences back into their own company or their own community or whatever and teach'em. We keep it pretty small. Last year we graduated at 11, and I think this year, coming up in October, we'll have about the same size crowd. So again, we get all kinds of, we get CEOs, we get people from the h and r department of big corporations, we get trainers and coaches and all these entrepreneurs and all these, and they come and they spend five and a half days with me and away they go. So now again, we can do this two ways. We are still open from the standpoint where if a company wants to hire us, they come do that. Tell us what's going on. We'll create the entire experience around whatever's going on with your company. So for example, if you're launching a product or maybe you're bringing a bunch of your distributors in or whatever, and you want to create a really powerful experience to bond them with your company and your product and your service and your mission and your vision and all that, then we create the board break and the firewalk experience in and around that so that they're anchored to that going forward. If they want to promote the Firewalk experience for one of those categories for vets versus responders, single moms or kids that have been abused, then we can do that too. So whatever situation, just about any situation that they could come up with, we've got a really awesome solution and experience for them. That's fantastic. And I'll drop in the show notes a link to your website so that anybody can get more information that way to look at possibly hiring you guys to consult with them or taking advantage of your training once a year to learn how to do it, learn how to do all those cool things. Yeah. Cool. Thank you. Appreciate. That. Absolutely. So we've talked about a lot of stuff. It's really exciting. I'm not sure if I'm ready to do it, but the idea of doing it is something that I like. I haven't had the opportunity. You haven't had the opportunity. I've been with you a short time, Eddie, you'd walk, there'd be no reason not to. The bottom line is I would ask you, so what's the worst that can happen? Burn your feet off and die. No, not going to happen. I'll tell you, you know what? You want to have some fun. Your listeners and your audience want to have some fun. Go Google and go watch her. And she depicts pretty much what somebody goes through prior to, she was not going to do it either was, I remember my story. That was a hard no. Hell no, I'm not doing that. That's insane. But again, that's just fear controlling me. And I get it fear's there to guide you. Just don't let it become your jailer. And that's really where the breakthrough is. It's right there. Because again, once you firewalk believe it, and again, between Tony and I and my private career and my career with him, I've walked over half a million people in my career and we walked everybody, my team and I, we've walked everybody from Oprah to usher my kids. My daughter was six years old, the first time she firewalk my son was nine. What kind of a belief system do you think that sets up with a six-year-old and a nine-year-old kid. And if you look at their lives today and how successful they are and how they've created this beautiful life for themselves and the men and women that are in their lives, like my daughters, my son-in-Law, which I've got two grandkids. She met a magical young man who's got an incredible family. Same thing with my son. My son met an incredible woman who has an incredible family. That's not luck. That was the, they attracted what they put out there. And so again, that's why I love working with kids. Give me a 6, 7, 8, 9-year-old kid. Let me take 'em out there and show 'em the board break. You know what, Eddie, they'd never be able to do that unless they went to a dojo somewhere in the country. They'd have to join a martial arts studio and be able to do that. But we take the experience to a whole nother level by writing on it, things to go towards away from, and then anybody's name that they're in conflict with, and then the rite of passage by putting somebody's name that they've lost. They could put a grandmother or a parent or brother or sister or whatever. And then you empower 'em with the board break, and then they get to go throw their board in the fire and then fire walk. I mean, that is such an empowering thing for a kid. And so again, you and I discussed it earlier, that whole rite of passage part has gone away. And I know what people are thinking right now. Well, those kids are going to get hurt. They're going to get burned. Are you sure? How sure are you? Well, no, they're not. What's the worst that can happen to a kid if they fire walk? They get a little blister on their foot. So what, I'll tell you something that's dangerous. It's called soccer. It's called football. It's called wrestling. It's called baseball. It's called basketball. All these things, kids can get debilitating life-changing things can happen to these kids. Injuries, you get hurt injuries. So here, the worst thing can happen. They get a little hot spot on their foot, and yet after they fire walked, they've got one of these and it's a container and it says, I fire walked in 2024. And they get to put this in their room and they get to look at it every single day, which empowers them, right? So again, I love doing kids. That's why I loved the YMCA and other organizations like that to work with them. The challenge is that you get a bunch of, oh, how do I say it? Let's just say we get some adults in there that have limiting beliefs and they make a bunch of stuff up. And the next thing you know, they quash the experience for those kids. So again, you can Google me, you can see I'm really good at what I do, and the last thing I want is to hurt some kid when my outcome was to create one of the most incredible life-changing experiences that child will ever, ever experience. That's fantastic. Yeah. Thank you. I love it. We're going to talk more. I'm going to keep in touch. Sure. I'm definitely interested in doing some stuff with you. Is there anything else you want to wrap up with before we close out? A lot of times I get asked Dave, so what's your ritual? What do you do? What's one of the top things you've ever learned from Tony? And what's going on? And I typically end it this way. I think the two most important times in our life, Eddie, and again, this is just me, it's the moment we're born and the moment we figure out why. One of my mentors said something to me years ago, and I never forgot it, he said, Dave, remember every human being on this planet has two lives. And the second one starts when we realize we have only one. And so my thing is, you want to change your life, change your story. All of us have a story. Everything that happens to us, I don't care if it's good, bad, indifferent, whatever. We make up a story about it. We're in charge. We're the architect of that story. And so my encouragement to you is if you want to change your life, change your story for sure. And I'll close with this, Victor Frankl. Victor Frankl, I think gave us the greatest bit of evidence to prove that what we're talking about right here. And he wrote the book, man, search for me. I'd encourage your readers and your audience to read it. It's not an easy read. I'm going to warn you. And if you know Victor, Victor was in Auschwitz. And so what happened to him during that experience? Well, when you went to Auschwitz, can you imagine every second that you're in your existence, you don't know whether you're going to the chamber that day, every single second. Can you imagine how much fear is running through your veins? And by the way, they took everything from him. They assassinated his family. You have no clothes, you're naked, you're standing outside, it's cold, there's no food. So everything is gone. They took everything from you, your dignity, all of it. But there was one thing that Victor figured out. He said, there's one thing you can't take from me. I have to let it go. I have to give it to you. I have to relinquish it. And that's my attitude. And he said to himself, someone has to get out of here and tell this story. And that's what he did. So it goes back to what we were talking about earlier. It is purpose. Find it. Find your purpose. We all have one. And don't think that you don't. Oh, I'm just this or I'm that. Now you're telling another story again. So I believe all of us have a molecule of magnificence living inside of it. Eddie and I don't care, race, creed, or color doesn't matter. Go interact with that molecule of magnificence and let it guide you. And here's what I believe, and that is if you help enough people in life get what they want in life, you'll always get what you want. And that left me with what's on my website. Let's stop looking for heroes and B one. Awesome. Thank you so much, Dave. I love it. Appreciate you my man. Alright brother. Yeah, we'll do it again.