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Brandon Held - Life is Crazy
This podcast is designed to help with suicide prevention. That is the #1 goal! This is also a Podcast of perseverance, self-help, self-Improvement, becoming a better person, making it through struggles and not only surviving, but thriving! In this Podcast the first 25 episodes detail my life's downs and ups. A story that shows you can overcome poverty, abusive environments, drug and alcoholic environments, difficult bosses, being laid-off from work, losing your family, and being on the brink of suicide. Listen and find a place to share life stories and experiences. Allow everyone to learn from each other to reinforce our place in this world. To grow and be better people and help build a better more understanding society.
The early podcast episodes are a story of the journey of my life. The start from poor, drug and alcohol stricken life, to choices that lead to success. Discusses my own suicide ideations and attempt that I struggled with for most of my life. Being raised by essentially only my mother with good intentions, but didn't know how to teach me to be a man. About learning life's lessons and how to become a man on this journey and sharing those lessons and experiences with others whom hopefully can benefit from my successes and failures.
Hosting guests who have overcome suicide attempts/suicide ideations/trauma/hardships/difficult situations to fight through it, rise up, and live their best life. Real life stories to help others that are going through difficult times or stuck without a path forward, understand and learn there is a path forward.
Want to be a guest on Brandon Held - Life is Crazy? Send Brandon Held a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/brandonheld
Brandon Held - Life is Crazy
Episode 49: From Stutterer to CEO. Jim Tracy 10x Author and Going.
Jim Tracy shares his remarkable journey from being labeled "retarded" by nuns to becoming a successful CEO and influential workplace culture speaker, proving the American Dream is still achievable through resilience and determination.
• Born in South Dakota, struggled with stuttering and "math dyslexia" as a child
• Learned welding in high school, a skill that would later prove valuable
• Met future wife and proposed within two months, married for 45 years
• Earned college degree despite academic struggles, graduating in three years
• Started successful tower-building company with his son that grew to 1,000 employees
• Published the book "Building Men: Character Lessons from Influencers"
• Became a jet pilot at age 64, fulfilling a childhood dream
• Advocates for mentorship across generations, especially for younger workers
• Believes in "training by trauma" – getting the test before the lesson
• Lives by the philosophy "revenue cures a lot of problems" and "be a finisher"
Find Jim on LinkedIn or at TheJimTracy.com, and look for his book "Building Men" wherever books are sold.
Go to BrandonHeld.com and "subscribe to podcast" and get exclusive episodes for subscribers only. Follow me on IG: BH_Life_Is_Crazy.
Want to be a guest on Brandon Held - Life is Crazy? Send Brandon Held a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/brandonheld
BrandonHeld.com iPad drawing for Life Coaching clients
Welcome. Welcome back to Brandon Held. Life is Crazy. Today I have a special guest that I'm very excited about. He's affectionately known as Grampian Jim Tracy is his name. He's one of the highest demand influencers and speakers on workplace culture in North America. He combines real-life CEO experience with candid stories about resilience and team building, and he's a grandfather of 16, soon to be 18, because he has twins on the way. How you doing, Jim?
Speaker 2:I'm doing awesome, man. It's an honor to be here. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to see where we go with this podcast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's no telling where this might go, so this should be a good time. Hey, life is crazy, right, that's right. Life is crazy, full of ups and downs. The bad we get through the bad and we make it through it okay. And then sometimes the good doesn't last as long as we'd like either, so we just got to keep going, right, yeah put one foot in front of the other exactly.
Speaker 2:So jim tell everybody a little bit more about yourself wow, I'm living, walking proof that the american dream is still possible. I came from a background for a little town in south dakota and when I was in second grade the nuns told my mom that they should send me to the state school for retarded children and let me live there. My mom put her foot down and said no, I was a stutterer a little bit and also had some math issues. We'll say I call it math dyslexia because I and I still think algebra is wrong. That is just wrong to do to children. Numbers are not letters and they shouldn't be forced to be that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I moved up to Duluth, minnesota. I was a welder by trade and I was living on what they affectionately call the Iron Range of Minnesota. I was headed for Alaska. I was going to go up and weld on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which was a big money job back then. I I was going to go up and weld on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which was a big money job back then. I walked through this house and there was a girl there in a gold jumpsuit and the first thought that popped in my head at 20 years old was I'm going to marry her, and I had no idea where it came from. It took me another 20 years to get to Alaska. We met in August, engaged in October and married the following April so quick, but that was 45 years ago. We in October and married the following April so quick, but that was 45 years ago. We got five kids and soon to be 18 grandkids and, yeah, just rock the world with all kinds of family and then got a pretty successful business career.
Speaker 1:My thumbnail sketch yeah, that's still a mouthful. That's a from second grade to today. So we obviously want to break that down a little bit. And, and just so you know, I got your bead on the marriage thing I met my wife and six days later proposed to her. Wow, and three months later we got married.
Speaker 2:So no grass growing under your feet, man, you got you, you walloped me.
Speaker 1:As soon as I met her, I knew she was the one. And when I say the one, I mean like my future, cause it's my fourth marriage, I've been divorced three times, so but I just knew when I met her. So, anyway, all right, let's start with that childhood of yours. Back then they didn't know a lot about a lot, let's face it. They just didn't.
Speaker 1:So because you stuttered, they thought you were not smart, not intelligent and they really didn't understand speech impediments and stuff back then. So how did that affect you, knowing that they felt that way about you while you were growing up?
Speaker 2:It was probably more than math than anything, because I really just don't understand math like other people do. And because of that I was just, I was new, I didn't think I knew, and it was affirmed I had six brothers. So they did a lot of affirmation that I was stupid. We sat in that old 1963 Dodge doing times tables with a whole bunch of other kids in the car and me sitting in the middle between my mom and dad, frustrating the bejesus out of them because they couldn't figure out why in the world I couldn't understand those times tables. It really put me in a category of boy. He's not very bright and that really sticks with you.
Speaker 2:And I actually got some help doing some math from my mom and when you got eight kids it ain't easy to help one of them with homework. But she took care of me and I was in the eighth grade and I was really struggling in school. Not many people know this story but my mom helped me with my extra credit and I took it in to my teacher and then the report card came back and it had a big flag on it and, man, I did enough extra credit where I did not earn an F. I knew that. And I was an eighth grader. So I was a tough guy. But, man, I'm going home, I know my dad's going to kill me and all I can do is read this F on this report card.
Speaker 2:And I was pretty, I was pretty big as an eighth grader. So I was I'm as tall today as I was then and mom said, hey, let's just go talk to him, I'll let him know. I helped you with it. But so we went in and she said hey, I don't know if he handed it in, but I know he did the work and I want you to know that. And the teacher basically said hey, lady, you're just another mom coming in here lying for their kid. And something clicked in my mind and it wasn't a good click. It was a bad click, because when you got eight brothers and you got a mom that your duty is sworn to defend, and I hit him.
Speaker 2:And I hit him right in the beak of the nose and he tumbled backwards over his chair and my mom was like oh my gosh what are we going to do?
Speaker 2:And so I got to go home to dinner and sit through dinner. My dad didn't say a word. And after dinner he said James, step into the living room with me. And I was pretty sure this was like the mother of all death sentences. And he set me on the ottoman under his footstool and that's where you set when you really got it. You're going to get a whooping man. He looked at me and he said did I hear that you hit one of your teachers? And I said yes, sir. And he said did he say something to your mother? And I said yes, sir. He said did he call her a liar? And I'm like, yes, dad. He said don't you ever tell anybody? I said this. But if he ever does that again, you knock him on his tail Again. And that was the most it was ever said. But I got a vacation from school and I never had to go back to that class. But here again it just affirmed that hey, jim's the troublemaker, he's the one not bright enough to not even know to whack a teacher.
Speaker 1:Plus, he can't pass a math class. I mean, that's the thing. Not every subject is for everyone. I was basically the opposite of you, so I got out of high school with a 1.5 GPA. I sucked at school, but the only thing I was in was advanced math. It was the only thing that made sense to me. Nothing else made sense to me. I sucked at science. I sucked at foreign language. Anything that required studying and memorization. I just couldn't do it. But math was simple to me. It came to me, but again, I also thought I was dumb. I thought there was no life of education for me after high school. So I totally identify with everything you're saying. So somewhere along the way you got into welding, or you got into, you wanted to be a welder, or how did that come about?
Speaker 2:Because I couldn't, because I got an F in the eighth grade in math. That F stuck by the way. Then the ninth grade they wouldn't let you take algebra. So the 10th grade you couldn't take geometry. So the 11th grade you couldn't take trigger whatever's next. So I graduated from high school and I had about the best I'd ever had is eighth grade, what they called then business math. And later I fell in love with sarah, as I told you right, and my father and I asked my father-in-law if I could marry her and he said where are you going to school? And I'm like anywhere you want, sir. If that's the price of entry, I'm in. And so I went to college and Sarah actually tutored me through algebra the first time I'd ever taken algebra in college.
Speaker 2:That's why I still think it's unfair, but I learned to weld in high school from a teacher, friend, boss, competitor, all those things that I write about in the book and it was him who built a lot of confidence in me, and then my father-in-law, as well as the first boss out of college. But he taught me how to weld and I took that skill up and I was welding aluminum, which was pretty high-tech stuff. The aluminum that I welded was carrying 500,000 volts of electricity, so you better be darn good at it. And, as it turned out, I was pretty good at it. But then, hey, if I want to get married, I was going to school. So I'm like yes, sir, sir, yes, sir.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's cool. You got pushed for a different reason. I was in the Air Force. I thought the Air Force was going to be my life and in doing that, in an attempt or effort to get promoted in the Air Force, I took a college course, because that's what my supervisor told me I should do. And I did take a math class and I got a B plus in the math class. And I thought shit, if I can get a B plus in a college level math class, maybe I can go to college. So I ended up getting out of the Air Force and going to college too, by dumb luck that I thought I could do it. Yeah, all right, so you go to college. What'd you go to college to do? What was your big dream?
Speaker 2:Business. My big dream was to play for the Minnesota Vikings, but I topped out at five, nine. So that wasn't happening. I just wanted to be in business. I had one goal I wanted to make $100,000 a year by the time I was 30. That's the only thing I could think of, only thing I could talk about. It was I was driven.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And I was a new dad. We had a kid while we were in college and one shortly thereafter, so it was a pretty crazy time, but I bartended my ways through college. I worked at the VFW and then a local bar, and then I ran a bookstore and I fixed washing machines, whatever it took to pay the rent and get tuition so we can get out of there without a pile of debt.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So jack of all trades, huh yeah.
Speaker 2:I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I also bartended in college, so that's funny. I did it at Applebee's and Red Lobster. I had a really good time, so all right. So you go to college, you get your degree, and how did that go for you overall, the college education? Did you do well in college or how did that go?
Speaker 2:No, no, I was the most miserable student a teacher could ever want. I needed to get a passing grade in every course. I'm the only guy probably to ever graduate from the university with never having had an A Wow. And I was okay with that man. I wanted the onion skin and I wanted to get out. And so when I went in, sarah and I made a deal here's a deal I'm going to finish and finish I did.
Speaker 2:In three years I went to every summer school, every little interim class I could have, I loaded my schedule up, I took the easiest possible classes I could get and I got a really super huge blessing Mine was the only graduating class from the university to ever not require calculus, wow. And so before me they had to have calculus and after me they had to have calculus, but I skated by. But I'm the guy. I took statistics, intro to statistics four different times. The first three I dropped it and the last one I got a D and I walk out of there dancing, going, man, I'm happy. But then when they had applied statistics, when you put widgets to it. But then, when they had applied statistics, when you put widgets to it, I got an easy B, wow. So the theoretical part of it, just didn't work in my brain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I totally get that. That was me in geometry. I just didn't get geometry at all. It's like how could I be so good at algebra and just not get geometry? I just couldn't get it. So that's cool. I actually I took intro to statistics in college. For about three days I think I went into the class two or three times and said, no, this isn't for me and I dropped it. But my demon was my undergraduate degree was in communications, because I actually wanted to do play by, play for sports. That was my dream.
Speaker 2:Right on.
Speaker 1:And I had to have five quarters of a foreign language. So my demon was Spanish, which I did not do. Well, yeah, especially the fourth and fifth quarter, when they're expecting you to be basically bilingual, and I'm like no, no, hablo.
Speaker 2:Yeah, interestingly enough, languages is one of the places where I found myself pretty adept. I didn't find it out till later in life. I ran a company called Premier Industries it's actually the structural products division of it and we had a Japanese customer. And then, all of a sudden, the Japanese customer, which represented about 65% of our business, said hey, we're going to do this ourself. We love your product so much, we're going to manufacture it ourselves. So in 30 days I learned enough Japanese to go over there by myself. I went over to Japan and I got around fine. I've met customers. I traveled alone, with no interpreter and, yeah, we actually turned the company around, based on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great. And again, that just goes to show you how the brain works right. The brain just clicks with certain things and it just doesn't with others. And I wish foreign language did that with me, because my wife's Brazilian, she speaks Portuguese and she wants me to learn it, but I just don't have what it takes to learn it. I've resigned myself to that fact, all right.
Speaker 2:All right. Love Portugal, by the way, and love and love, love Brazil. I want to visit Brazil. I've never been there, but I love the culture. Met a lot of Brazilian folks over in Japan.
Speaker 1:Brazilian. Brazilians are amazingly kind to Americans, and Brazil is absolutely beautiful. It's stunning. So, yeah, when you go there, you'll love it, you'll be happy you did.
Speaker 2:Right on, I'm ready.
Speaker 1:All right. So you get out of college and you've got your business degree. Now, what was your first step from there?
Speaker 2:It was in 1983 and there weren't jobs available and so I started out with a stack of 300 resumes and we moved to Minneapolis because there were no jobs in small towns. So we moved to Minneapolis and I just started going door to door with a stack of resumes and I walked into this one door and I told the nice lady at the front desk that I was looking for work and I was ready to hustle and I was just graduated and somebody heard me from the other room and they walked out and there was this incredibly handsome, large, white haired man and he said what makes you think that we should hire you? And I told him, I said, sir, somebody is going to be smart enough by the end of the week. And he laughed a big laugh and he brought me in his office and it turned out that he was the CEO of a small family enterprise and I learned more in the next two years working for Lundell Manufacturing than I probably learned at any other two-year stint in my life.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:And then I went from there. I had that entrepreneurial itch so I put myself and my wife almost into bankruptcy. And then we moved to Denver for a different job. And then I scratched that entrepreneurial itch again and almost went into bankruptcy again and took another job out in Seattle and that went really well. And then one day my son came home and he was building cell towers. He was just new into it and I had built towers as a welder and so he had this romantic view of building towers. So I started visiting his job site and I'm thinking man, these guys are totally unsafe. Somebody's going to get killed here. So I told him. I said you got to quit this gig. And he's no man.
Speaker 2:It happened. I make good money, I like my job, I like who I work with. But I kept my spurs into them and one night at the supper table he said dad, if you're so stinking smart, let's just do it ourselves, but I'm going to keep climbing towers. And I cashed in my 401k and I cashed in my management incentive plan and away we went. 23 years later we had merged with some other companies and had a thousand employees. It was a pretty wild ride, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's cool, because third time was a charm, for sure, sometimes it takes people more than that, but I'm sure you learned from the first two failures, right? I mean, tell me a little bit about your takeaways from your failures.
Speaker 2:When you talked about learning, it really resonated with me because I think there's two kinds of learning. Now. The first one is prepaid tuition, and that's when you get to learn from other people and that's the easiest learning, but it's not generally sometimes the most effective because it's harder to take in. Now the other kind of learning I call learning by doing or training by trauma, and when we learn that way, you get the test before you get the lesson. That's right. And when you get the test before you get the lesson, it is a wonderful learning environment. But the tuition is really high and because of that you get to put those lessons into practice on the day of the test and then on the day of every lesson thereafter. And some of the lessons I had were in finance If you don't sell stuff this is the real number one lesson If you don't sell, you're going to die.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no money. So the first caveat I would say and this is going to be part of a new book I'm writing called Management by Cliché it's revenue cures a lot of problems. It doesn't cure them all, but it sure cures a pile of them. And then I had another huge mentor by the name of Mike McKenna and he took me to the next level in understanding finance because he'd say he was a British guy and I wish I could use his accent. But he said, jimmy, the numbers never lie the numbers lie.
Speaker 2:We're all screwed. Sometimes he wouldn't use the word screwed, but you get the idea. Yeah, and yeah.
Speaker 1:So business is kind of like marriage right, money doesn't solve all your problems, but it sure takes away some, doesn't?
Speaker 2:it? Yeah, you got to use it like the tool. That it is Right? Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:And it's funny that line you bring up. I actually had a teacher somewhere along the way in life that said life is the hardest teacher. It gives you the test first, then the lesson afterwards. That's a thing I've had in my brain for a long time as well. Yeah, it's funny, yeah.
Speaker 2:And you go back to your school analogies and you think about what you learned when you learned and it's like even in college, it's like there's this blur of stuff and I can point to maybe five things that I remember about college especially the classroom part of it, but it's not.
Speaker 2:that's not the point. It teaches you a little bit more how to think and how to process and then how to finish. If you start college and then you quit college, you cast in a role or a dropout. Even high school, I mean it's like you, you didn't finish and there's a stigma that carries. And I wasn't very good at college but I didn't quit. I caught that onion skin and I was pretty proud of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because even my own kids I don't know if you dealt with this with your kids or grandkids, but they always ask what's the point of college? Like you were just talking about, I've learned a lot more from life and working than I ever learned in college, but I say pretty much the same thing Like it teaches you how to think differently, work harder, find answers that you didn't even know you could necessarily find, and then you complete something. You completed something you started, and that's what people want to see. They want to see that you complete something you started. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Be a finisher.
Speaker 1:That's right when we do the 5K race.
Speaker 2:I got a 5K obstacle race that I'm going to do with six or seven of my grandkids here pretty quick in July. I'm never going to win it. I had a busted up leg real bad, and I've never had a runner's body. But you know what? They're always going to give me a finisher medal because I didn't know quitting this old man.
Speaker 1:That's what I like to hear, and what a great lesson for your kids and grandkids. Totally respect and appreciate that.
Speaker 2:I got Medicare If I get hurt out there man, it's not even going to cost a lot.
Speaker 1:So how old are you anyway? I'm almost 52. I'll be 52 in a month.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm 66 and I'm doing more walking than running because I crushed my tibial plateau in a pretty bad ski accident. So I got part of plastic knee and part of somebody else's knee and part of my own knee. They said, hey, you know that steel, that stainless steel, those plates and those screws, they'll never bother you. And after two years I'm like you're lying take him out, so I try not to abuse it, but yesterday I walked 13 miles, so it hit a new record.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:I was a little stiff this morning, but we're going to get out and walk tonight too.
Speaker 1:There you go.
Speaker 2:That's the best Don't say quit.
Speaker 1:No, I'm not a runner or even much of a walker. To be honest with you, my lower back got so screwed up in my military and athletic days of younger life. But I do lift weights. I'm a weightlifter, so I do. I actually lifted weights just before we started this podcast.
Speaker 2:Keep lifting, man, it keeps you young and I have a.
Speaker 1:I'm not trying to brag, but just to keep it in perspective. I have a 27 year old wife, so I got to try to keep up, so I can't let myself get too far out of it there you go. So you started your business with your son and that went. That's gone really well and it's been really successful. And now you're writing books, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I looked at the ages of my grandkids and my first thought was I need to write a letter to these younger ones, because they might not get a chance to know me. I'm a little longer than the two, so I started writing about I just started writing some stories about people who influenced me, and that's what building men turned into. My son is my business partner and he was doing an interview with a trade magazine and they're like hey, man, ryan, what do you do now? And he said I used to build towers. I built five different kinds of towers. Isn't a tower I can't build? But now I build men who build towers. And that's where the title of the book came from.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:And so building men is called characterluencers, and they're people that started with my grandpa, born in 1903, to some of my grandkids, my son-in-law, a lot of other younger folks that I've learned from, and they get some of the credit, and that's why it's not character lessons from old people, it's character lessons from influencers, because some of the young people are having a tremendous influence on me. When I get on the stage and I give speeches to folks, the ones who actually listen are the Gen Xs and the Ys and even sometimes the Elfas that are coming up and saying, hey, I've never really had a mentor, how do I find a mentor, and things like that. So that's a lot. Where this book came from is just a way to encourage people, to put yourself out there, to help people be better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. A lot of what you said and spoke to is a lot of how I feel. Even though I am a little younger, I still feel I'm at the later half of my life and it makes you revisit some things and how you should handle some things and what you should do. And we come from an era where people were just generally more helpful to people and the world's turning a little bit more selfish. Now, where it's a little bit more I need to worry about me and mine and less about society, and I feel like people like you and myself we're doing our best that we can to say, hey, look out for your fellow man, and so I love that.
Speaker 2:I look at it a lot of times generationally because a lot of the talks that I give they really address the generational gap issues that are present in today's workforce. And what I found is that my grandpa looked at my dad and he said those guys are out of control. They listen to this stupid music, they dance really funny and their clothes are just out of whack man, they don't even wear ties.
Speaker 2:And then my dad looked at me and my generation. He goes you know, those hippies, they're pretty stupid. They got that long hair going and they wear army jackets. They're not in the army like I was. And then I looked at my generation behind me and I'm like you know, that metal music, that's really stupid. And those millennials they looked down and they said you guys, that rap music, that's really stupid. It happens every time.
Speaker 2:For sure every time for sure. And what I've found is that, especially in the younger folks, my grandpa said I want you to be seen and not heard, and then my dad said just do what I tell you, because I said so. Yeah, and I tried those things with my kid, who's a millennial, and I said just because I said so. And he looks at me and he shrugs once he goes you know what. That's not a good reason.
Speaker 1:I'm like what do you mean? That's not a good reason.
Speaker 2:It worked on me and what I found is that they're looking for the why, yes, and they want to understand. And they're not. It's not that they're unwilling, they're just smarter than me. And now I look at this, at the Gen Zs, and they're coming back to me and they're like going, nobody mentored my Gen Y or even up to the millennials. And so I'm just I'd do anything to have somebody teach me. And they come alongside an old man like me and they're like just show me what, show me how to what to do or how to do it or even why to do it, but help me out. And so this mentoring thing, we got to actually turn this around.
Speaker 2:We used to send people to an apprenticeship. I went through some apprenticeships when I was welding and they didn't teach me the why, but they sure taught me the how. And then I learned the why by reading blueprints and things like that that were a requirement of the job and that was self-taught. The techniques and the strategies to weld are no different than the ones for business. You got to figure out the why a little bit on your own. Some people will share it with you, like Leroy Lundell, the guy that was standing in the hallway with a shock of white hair. We really have to come alongside these younger folks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I totally agree. I was someone that grew up asking the why and it actually, in that time and era it got me in a lot of trouble, frankly.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Especially being in the military. Right, they do want you to be seen and not heard. Just shut up and do what I say. Right, they do want you to be seen and not heard. Just shut up and do what I say. But also, conversely, if you're following an order and you find that order is wrong and you follow it, you get in trouble anyway. For following an order you do have to have some level of brains and you do have to understand the whys. I taught my kids to be that way as well Respect authority and all that. But also don't be afraid to ask why. If something doesn't make sense, ask why. I totally agree. I'm trying to be. I never had a mentor either at all period in my life, ever Never had a male mentor. So I had to learn through the school hard knocks and I want to make life easier for some younger people who want to take advantage of that. So that's also why I want to be a mentor, because I didn't have that available.
Speaker 2:Right on, I'm going to send you a copy of this book, brandon, just so you can see. I didn't think I had a mentor for a long time too. When I started writing them down, I thought, wow, that guy really helped me.
Speaker 1:No, I really didn't. I have searched through the reaches of my brain and I just did. I had a woman who did help me out once during my career for a little bit, but I'm saying I never had a male mentor, and so it's so important for me to change that and reach people who've had the same problems. So that's why I love what you're doing as well.
Speaker 2:Good for you, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So another thing I want to get into is you are a pilot, right? Yeah, yeah. So talk about how you got into that.
Speaker 2:When I was just a little teeny kid I went on a flight. There was a baby who had to be flown air ambulance and my dad actually grabbed me and said come on, let's go. And we went on a flight in the snow and I got to fly right seat and at the end of it it just planted a little teeny seed in me for aviation. Fast forward about 40 years and I'm standing with my dad in South Dakota and I point up at a small plane. I said, hey, man, when's the last time you were in one of those? And he said whoa, that was a long time ago.
Speaker 2:I was with your grandpa and we went all over and the other guy by the name of John. We saw all the places that we'd go hunting together and all the places that we've worked on farms and all the stuff like that, and he said I'd give anything to do that again. I heard that in April, april and October I came back and I took him on a flight. It's called a bias for action, but from there we bought an aircraft to serve our people in our business and from there I was halfway between Bozeman, montana, and Boise, idaho, in a single engine, piper Saratoga, and I looked down over the river of no return wilderness area and I thought, yep, with a single engine, if it goes out, there ain't no returning.
Speaker 2:So, I went home and talked to my wife and went to a twin engine and the twin engine we got was a little jet called an Eclipse 500. So I got rated in that when I was 64, I think, and now I'm 66 and one of the oldest jet pilots with a first initial rating that I know of.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's cool on so many levels. I don't know how far your twin engine jet takes you. Can you fly overseas with it?
Speaker 2:Let's say I just flew to Seattle and from Boise and it was about an hour and 15 minutes. Okay, all right it saves a lot of nights in motels, saves a lot of drive time During COVID. It was the best because I had to be in places like Seattle and Spokane and Bozeman, Montana and Denver and New Braunfels, texas, on a monthly basis and, man, there's enough rebel in me that my dis-love of DSA is pretty extreme.
Speaker 1:I'm going to say dislike man. I'm going to say dis-love.
Speaker 2:That's an easy way to say boy, I hate those folks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I hate flying because I hate commercial airlines, period. So it's not like I'm afraid to be in the air or afraid to be in an airplane, I just hate commercial airlines. So it's one of the reasons I avoid it. I really respect that. You can do that, that's great. So I think I'm going to wrap it up here. Is there anything else you want to let the people know and how they can reach you and get your books?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm feeling pretty blessed right now. The book Building Men got published and it's the first of a three book deal with Morgan James Publishing and I'm so proud of it because I wrote it for the right reasons and it's really resonating with people. It's the number one new release in single parenting, which I did not anticipate, but it's also on the charts for both business, mentoring and fatherhood, so there's lots of lessons that transcend family. They go to business and they go up like that, and you can find Building Men by Jim Tracy wherever you get books, and whether it be Amazon, and just leave me a good review somewhere if you like it. The other thing if you want to get a hold of me, best is on LinkedIn, jim Tracy, or you can go to the Jim Tracy D-H-E, jim J-A-M Tracy, t-r-a-c-ycom, or jump on our podcast, the Grampian.
Speaker 1:I meant to ask you your book Building Men. Is it in audio book format?
Speaker 2:It is going to be launched in audiobook format the end of July. And the publisher? So basically, publishers take a risk on an author, especially a first-time author. Sure, and they like what they see, but you've got to work pretty hard at it, and so that's the risk they're taking. And then you've got to end up with something somebody's going to actually read or buy, and so they don't allow the audible version of it or the audio book version of it to come out until a couple months after your book launches, because they want to get all of the sales that they can before they start ringing the wash rag out with audio books.
Speaker 1:So that's some good insights. I don't. I'm not a book reader and I've explained this to my listeners in the past. But the reason I'm not is every time I get to three pages deep, I drift off. I completely forgot what I read. I try to backtrack, I just end up doing it again and I just keep, and I do it until I just give up and I quit reading. So I learned a long time ago I'm an audio book man. So when it comes out on audio book, if you remind me, I will buy it.
Speaker 2:It'll be available on Amazon and also Barnes and Noble and wherever audio books are sold. That's where you'll find it. End of July.
Speaker 1:Yeah, funny story.
Speaker 2:I said, hey, man, I want to read my own audiobook. And they're like, we'll let you audition.
Speaker 1:And they didn't pick me, they picked somebody else wow that's a slap in the face, isn't it?
Speaker 2:actually, they're in the business of selling books, and so what I said is, guys, I trust you to do the best you can.
Speaker 1:You got to know what you're good at yeah, that's true, but you have a great voice. I don't, I don't really. Anyway, it's for me to, not for me to judge, as long as it goes well for you, right, yeah, all right. So I want to thank you, jim, for joining me in this podcast today. It's been fun, your life story has been a heck of a ride and it's been pretty great, and I appreciate you sharing that with everyone and letting people you're successful today. But you had to fall down a couple of times before you got there, so that's okay, you can do that. Just rebound and keep going. So that's getting up, that's right. Keep getting up. Just don't quit, as he said before. Just don't quit and you'll be fine.
Speaker 1:And so I want to give my calls to action, which is for my listeners to go to brandonhellcom and subscribe to this podcast. I do have a new subscription where, if you subscribe for $10 a month, I throw in a couple bonus episodes that don't go out to the general public. Only the subscribers get to listen to it and, more importantly, you're helping me with the show, and that's greatly appreciated. And follow me on Instagram, jim. He has a pretty good, substantial following on LinkedIn. I'm trying to build my following on Instagram at BH underscore life is crazy. And I have a YouTube page Brandon held life is crazy. So, as always, I thank you for listening, because you gave us one of your most precious resources, which is time, and I never take that for granted. So until next time.
