The Driven Life: Mike Arning on team-building, public speaking and staying organized

Mike Arning (right) has moderated some major NASCAR press conferences, including the one where Tony Stewart announced he was retiring and that Clint Bowyer would replace him. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Stewart-Haas Racing via Getty Images)

This is the latest in a series of self-improvement/motivational-themed podcasts (also transcribed for those who prefer to read) involving people in the racing world sharing insight into successful habits. Up next: Mike Arning, founder and senior vice president of True Speed Communication.

If someone out there is wanting to get started in the PR world and they’re not already down the road in their career, what’s a good first step for people who are in college now?

Probably the biggest thing is — and I don’t care how much media changes — the written word is still incredibly valuable. That might be counter to what some people think, as the print industry continues to consolidate and things like that. But even with digital media, how you frame a social media post, regardless of the platform, how you word it can really be the difference between something that gets a lot of engagement and something that doesn’t.

Even as media continues to become more socially driven and more digital, traditional media still exists. It hasn’t gone away, nor do I think it will ever go away. So something like a concisely written press release that also is a bit creative that helps cut through the clutter — because how many press releases do you get in your inbox on Sunday? It’s a ton. You can’t read them all. But if someone can deliver you quality news that’s accurate, that is concise, that’s not going to waste your time and is actual news — not just a bunch of fluff — you’re far more likely to click on that than anything else.

So the written word is massively valuable. I feel like I can teach anybody a lot of different things, but if they can’t write, that’s a tough one. So if they can work on that, they already have a big step in the right direction. But then they have some tangible stuff to show, whether it’s a newsletter, a press release, social media post, and then I can see what they’ve actually done, and to me, seeing is believing.

So when you started doing this, I think you were just a one-man show at the start, right? And now how many people work for True Speed?

So including me and my wife, we have 11 people now. So it was me, myself and I for a long time. We took a bit of a leap of faith. Kellye, my wife, was the breadwinner of the family. She was the station manager of Radio Disney down in Atlanta, had Disney benefits and everything, but we were like two ships passing in the night. I’m traveling to all these races, and she’s pulling off events for Radio Disney — because you aren’t so much selling AM radio as you are creating events around Radio Disney. So she’d have events 5 to 7 o’clock at night during the week and here I am getting on a plane leaving Thursday and coming home Monday because we lived in Atlanta at the time.

After beating my head against the wall to try to grow the business from handling Home Depot and Joe Gibbs Racing and Tony Stewart, we finally started scoring some wins. We started representing GlaxoSmithKline and Interstate Batteries with Joe Gibbs Racing and SunTrust and IMSA with Wayne Taylor Racing, and I needed to hire people.

It just became a lot, and Kellye’s really smart — she’s my best friend — and we went all-in on True Speed Communication. It was nerve-wracking, and sometimes it still is, because it’s truly all on us to make it work. But it has worked. I think the fact she’s smart and knows things that quite honestly I don’t and is better at things that I’m just not as good at, but then there are things that I know well, and that’s what allowed us to really grow this thing.

And then I still keep my hands dirty. I try to give all my folks, especially on the NASCAR side, eight weekends off. It doesn’t always end that way, depending on what events we have on a race weekend or things like that. But like this weekend, I’m subbing for one of my reps — so I am a PR rep, I’m representing the No. 14 IT Savvy team with Clint Bowyer.

So I know what goes on during a race week and I know what my reps are dealing with. I know the demands on the drivers’ time, I know the expectations of the media, I know what NASCAR expects with the new post-qualifying and the new post-race procedures in regard to media. And I feel like if I didn’t have my hands in it, I don’t know how understanding I’d be of it. So I think that helps keep me pretty nimble in terms of what’s happening.

As a boss, for people out there in management roles, how important do you think it is for whatever the job they’re overseeing that they occasionally dip into it and do that?

I think it’s really important. There isn’t anything I’m asking of my folks that I haven’t done in the past or are doing right now. This morning, before I left the hotel, I built the post-race template we use to send to all the internal partners at Stewart-Haas Racing, who are one of our clients. So it’s ready to go so as soon as we have results. There’s someone who’s not at the track who can just plug in the stats and everything, turn around and hit send, so that whether (the recipient is) a CEO or the motorsports marketing manager, they know what went on with Stewart-Haas Racing right after the race. I had someone build that, I proofed it and edited it, and that went out this morning.

So it’s little things like that, but it helps grease the wheels, it helps for a quick turnaround. But most importantly for me, I know in my head what the stats are for our driver. For instance, if Kevin Harvick wins today, that will be his 10th win here at ISM Raceway near Phoenix, and he’ll join only six other drivers who have 10 or more wins at a specific track. If I don’t put that together, I don’t know that stat. So if Harvick does win and I’m in victory lane and FOX is there or MRN radio is there, I can help my rep Joe Crowley, who is on the 4, as he’s handling a bunch of other things. Knowledge is power, and I’ve got these kind of stats in the back of my mind that I can help out with in addition to all the logistical support as well.

You mentioned that you have 11 people now, and so you’ve had to build that team.

When I first started, I really looked at hiring (people with) experience. And I still do, but one of the nice things about having the growth that we’ve had, we’ve finally had the infrastructure and the support to start looking at some younger talent so that we can bring them on and not just throw them at the fire, sink or swim. We have the bandwidth to nurture some of those folks as well.

The learning curve is still steep — it doesn’t mean there’s this long runway. Because quite frankly, drivers, sponsors, media, NASCAR, you can’t make mistakes. Nobody really has any patience for you. You can stub your toe a little bit, but honestly, that’s (why people starting out should) work at your local tracks and then move up to a Truck or Xfinity program. Cut your teeth there, make some mistakes where the spotlight is not as bright so that you are ready for big things here in the Cup Series. Because the spotlight is bright. This is akin to Major League Baseball or the NFL; it’s just not a stick and a ball, it happens to be a race car and an engine and four tires. So it’s the same, and the expectations are high.

Your group spends a lot of time together on the road. How do you make sure that you have the right chemistry on your team? You have to manage conflicts if any come up, so you have to make sure that people are getting along. How do you make sure that you’re hiring people who have the right fit?

I think it’s always a moving target. You try to find people who right off the bat are passionate about the sport and what they do. If they don’t want to be here (that’s a problem). You need to be a fan of the sport, but not a fanboy. There is a difference, because I think I left the hotel at 6:30 this morning and we’re going to have a full race day, we’re going to fly back and we’re going to get (home at) maybe 6 a.m. That’s just what it is, and if that’s going to make you unhappy, then this is not the place for you.

And if you’re just sort of “eh” about racing and it’s just not as big of a deal, each day starts early and there is no end time. The end time is when you’re done. So you have to buy into that, and if someone’s not bought into that, then it’s probably not going to work.

So you’re looking for folks who have the same mindset. At the same time, I also make a bit of an investment in it. I give all my folks their own room on the road, so they have a place to work, a place to just chill out, a place where if they want to call home, they don’t have to worry about going out into the hallway or telling their roommate, “Hey…”

It’s just a little bit easier. It’s more expensive, my margins aren’t as strong, but I think long term it helps me keep the people that I have. Because trying to find a work-life balance in this sport is next to impossible, but if we can at least try, I like to think that the effort we collectively make to try and make those things a little bit better — having their own room on the road, having a sub on a race weekend, when the sub is there theoretically, they don’t have to do anything. It’s handled, because we’ve got an experienced person who is empowered to make decisions. Not just any decisions, but they have the background to make the correct decision as well. So if someone wants to go to a wedding or go to their kid’s birthday or just have a weekend and see what their neighbors do on a Saturday, they can.

I’m kind of jumping around here, but I feel like you do a lot of different things well. One of them is public speaking. You’ve hosted some very high-profile press conferences in the past, whether it’s Danica Patrick coming over to Stewart-Haas or when Tony Stewart had his first press conference after the Kevin Ward incident. If somebody might be nervous about giving a presentation in their own office, what are some tips that you could pass along?

Practice and repetition. I’m able to do that stuff now, and I was not good at it back in the day. I just wasn’t. It’s hard. So here are the things that I’ve found, and it goes back to college to where you just stand and deliver and you take opportunities and you do it.

I was editor of the (college) newspaper. And I think people have a variety of opinions about fraternities, but where I went, I felt like it was practice for the real world. I could run for office and then you had responsibility — you had to engage with the chapter, you had to speak in front of the dean or things like that, all those things helped.

And then as I started working my way up, I first started with Kenny Wallace and FILMAR Racing, a Busch team that went to Cup, and they were a single-car Cup team. So I just had more and more opportunities, and the more you did it, the better you got at.

Now, there are couple of other things that I’ll do. I’ll build a detailed run of show to where, if you write it out, you know what it is, so there’s nothing that can surprise you, you’ve kind of already built your schedule.

And then the second thing that I’ll do is wherever we are, I will go in — ideally when no one’s around — and just see, “Alright, what’s the podium like? Is the microphone voice-activated? Do I have to touch a button? Is there a podium? Do I need to hold the microphone?”

All those little things matter to where if you show up and you haven’t done that prep work and you think there’s a podium, you can put your hands on it, and sort of steady yourself, especially if there is a stressful time — but all of a sudden there’s no podium, you’re just holding a microphone and you’re nervous and it can throw you off your game.

And I know that because I’ve had events where I’m like, “I did a good job on that,” and other events where I literally walk out and hang my head and I’m like, “That was just not my best effort.” But the more you do it, the better you get at it. The more prep work you put into it, in terms of building out a schedule, it just gets you mentally right to do it.

Mike Arning (right) moderates the Stewart-Haas Racing press conference on the 2014 NASCAR Media Tour. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)

Building out a schedule, managing a team of people, the logistics — you have the F1 stuff that you do for Haas F1 Team as well, so you have people literally all over the world working for you. So how do you stay organized? How do you stay on top of it and not let stuff slide?

In this sport, you can’t just think two or three steps ahead, you’ve got to think 10 or 12. As much as we travel — I’ve got a great wife, I’ve got two awesome kids — when I’m home, I want to be home. So if I’m on an airplane, my head is buried in the laptop. If I’m here in the media center, if I’m not actually facilitating something or executing something, I’m working on what needs to happen with our NASCAR clients in Fontana or what needs to happen with Haas F1 Team in Australia and even Bahrain. I’m just trying to get ahead so when I do get home, I can be somewhat 9 to 5.

It doesn’t always work that way because things always pop up, but if you know you’ve got these deadlines and you can at least get ahead of them, you’re far more ready to deal with the things that will inevitably pop up.

I have an iPhone, I still have an iCalendar, I still do all that digital stuff. But I’m a little old school and I still have a monthly planner where I am writing stuff down. I feel like just writing it down, it’s embedded in my head. Like I know that I’ve already built out Tony Stewart’s schedule for Fontana, but I also know I need to pay attention to practice and qualifying for the race in the Australian Grand Prix, and I know immediately after that we need to turn around and there’s a Bahrain GP advance that needs to get done. But I also know Martinsville is coming up, and I also know there’s the 12 Hours of Sebring with Wayne Taylor Racing. So what do we need to do to get all that stuff together?

Thankfully I have been doing it a long time so I kind of know what needs to happen. But I’m also aware of these series, where they’re racing and the stuff that needs to be done to prepare ourselves and to deliver what we said we were going to do for our clients.

You guys have Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch — and you’re trying to make them look good PR-wise. You have to have some difficult days and challenges with that. So is there anything you could pass along to people as far as what happens on a difficult day — how do you get through it, how do you not lose your cool and how do you just keep moving on without getting your feelings hurt?

I think you always just put forth your best effort. If you get yelled at or if the day just becomes a disaster…if you at least put your best effort forward to where you did everything you knew how to do and tried to do, you were as prepared as possible, even if it all just fell apart you can walk out of the track or lay your head on the pillow and say, “You know what, I honestly put forth my best effort. I did the best that I could.” You take all those learnings and if you’re in the same position on down the road, you’re like, “Alright, if this happens again, I am not going to do that, but I am going to do this.” That’s probably the best thing you can do.

I haven’t batted 1.000, I haven’t even batted .500. There are many things, even when people say, “Hey, that was really good,” if I could have done that over again, I would have done it this way. I am constantly trying to figure out a way to do better, be more efficient, figure it out.

People in this sport get most testy when someone isn’t putting forth the effort because quite honestly, crew chiefs are putting forth the effort, the drivers are, the mechanics, the truck drivers, the media, everybody else is. So if someone’s half-assing it, that’s the thing that will just draw someone’s ire.

And so just don’t half-ass it. I mean, it sounds simple, but we were the first ones to walk into the media center this morning and turn on the lights in the PR room, and we’re prepared for today. I have the time now to talk because we are prepared. We’re good. So put forth your best effort.

Mike Arning was Tony Stewart’s public relations representative for most of the driver’s career.

The Driven Life: Elton Sawyer on being a team player, managing curveballs and staying level

(Photo: Jerry Markland / Getty Images)

This is the latest in a series of self-improvement/motivational-themed podcasts (also transcribed for those who prefer to read) involving people in the racing world sharing insight into successful habits. Up next: Elton Sawyer, the former driver who is now NASCAR’s vice president of officiating and technical inspection.

Everybody has been in a work environment at some point in their life. This is a very dynamic one here at the racetrack because there’s all sorts of people who are under your purview and they’re trying to run a race and get everybody ready for a race. What are some of the things that you look at from your perspective as far as what’s important to building a team, letting them do their job and making sure it’ll still run efficiently?

As a youngster and a teenager, I played all the ball and stick sports. I played basketball, I played baseball, I played football. And what I gathered very early on was the discipline it takes to be successful no matter what we’re doing. Even at an early age, you’ve got to be at practice on time, you’ve got to be in uniform. We’re a team, we wear the same uniform. It’s about the team, it’s not necessarily about the individual.

What we do on a given weekend at NASCAR is the same thing, whether it’d be the race directors in the tower or our series directors that are running the garage from the day-to-day operations of what goes on there and the communication with their individual teams.

I think the real key is to be able to identify good people, put them in positions, give them the tools to be successful — and support them. Let them go out and do their job. There will be an opportunity…we will have our competition meetings and we will debrief on the things we did well, the things we didn’t do so well, and what are we going to do to get better. That’s our approach every week. There’s going to be items in each one of those buckets.

There’s going to be some things we’ve done well — and we don’t want to sweep them under the rug. I think it’s important that we all recognize and say, “We did a pretty good job here. But here’s some things we didn’t do very well.” We’ve got to identify them, we’ve got to attack them, we’ve got to figure out what we have to do to not let them happen again. And then the next week, there’ll be something else. But it’s kind of a reset after every event.

You mentioned the word “support” and you’re not trying to micromanage the people under you and the people who are tasked with these jobs. In a workplace, that’s one of the most difficult things people have to encounter, both with bosses and employees, because you have to trust the people that you put in the positions to be able to execute. Are there any tips that you’ve found over the course of your career for being able to trust in those people enough to do that? And how do you know when it is time to step in when they’re not doing things the way you would want them to?

I think the key there is experience. When you’re looking to bring someone on and put them on your team or bring them to your team, that interviewing process is really critical so they understand the challenges that are going to be presented to them — no matter what the task is, no matter what the role is. As long as they understand that and they’re coachable…

Some people have more bandwidth than others, and you have to recognize that as a coach, if you will. If I see a guy or we see an individual who is going to be really strong as a race director, then we’ve got to make sure we get him in a role where he can develop and be a good race director. Instead of maybe he’s not going to be very good as a series director or he’s not going to be very good as a track service worker.

It takes time, it’s not a perfect science by any means, but I think identifying if someone has that drive and that heart to want to be good at something, then you can make sure that you can get the tools around them and the support.

The support is key, sort of like training wheels on a bicycle. At some point you have to take the training wheels off, but you also have to understand they’re going to make some mistakes, and you’ve got to be comfortable with them. If you’re in the NFL, it’s no different than our sport: A young quarterback is going to throw interceptions. We have to be good with someone throwing a couple interceptions, but then we can’t go at them and say, “You can’t throw interceptions,” because you’re going to get them to where they’re not comfortable and they’re not going to be able to do their job at a high level.

So I think the number one thing is to be comfortable with them throwing the interceptions from time to time. But if I use a race director as a good example, it’s better to throw the interceptions on say one of our weekly shows or one of our support events. Although it’s not ideal (any time), we don’t want to be throwing interceptions on Sunday. That’s the thing that you, you’ve got to make sure of that you train them. When you put them in the game on Sunday to be calling a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup event, you’ve got to make sure they’re ready to go. They can still throw an interception, but we need to make sure that we’ve prepared them and had them ready to do (their job).

Elton Sawyer, then part of Red Bull Racing, speaks with Brian Vickers during 2008 NASCAR preseason testing. (Getty Images)

One thing that’s always fascinated me from a coaching standpoint where you’re managing people is sometimes there’s going to be conflict. There are so many different personalities and not everybody gets along the same way. How do you handle things when two people that you both value on your team are not seeing eye to eye? How do you know when to step in and how do you manage a disagreement with a co-worker?

You’re kind of the mediator. You’ll get the information from one side, you’ll get the information from the other side. There may be a conflict that you can just handle with them one on one, and I think to me that’s the first step. Then you say, “Look, here’s what we need to do going forward with both of you.” If that conflict continues, then we probably need to have the triangle; we probably need to bring both of them, myself or another management position to sit in on that discussion, and at that point you need to think from a company perspective, here’s what we need from you.

When we walk in the gate on Friday morning or Saturday morning or Sunday morning, we’re all here to do a job and to be part of the team. So I think the number one thing is to try to get it resolved on the first level there, and sometimes that doesn’t work and you have to continue to take the next steps. And then ultimately, you’ll get to a crossroads and say, “Well, I’ve got to make a move here.” You’re got to move them to a different department because they’re a good employee, this is just not quite working where we have them today.

If somebody reading this was having some tension with their co-worker at their job, would you encourage them to talk to a supervisor, or should they handle it with that person themselves? Is there any sort of general rule of how that’s supposed to go?

I think all situations are going to be different. If you as the individual feel comfortable going to your co-worker and saying, “Look, this is not working as well as either one of us would like to see it work,” then see how that step works. Or it may be, “I don’t feel comfortable that’s going to get me anywhere,” so then I would suggest going to your supervisor and getting some advice and then maybe they will turn it around say, “Look, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to try it this way, and then get back with me and see if we’re going in a better spot. If not, then we’re take a little different angle.”

I don’t think that it’s written in stone that you have to do it a certain way, I think every individual’s a little different, every situation is different. The personalities of each is something that you’ve got to take in and put it in the equation of how you feel like you need to handle it.

I really like that, because you’re not ratting someone out necessarily if you go to your boss — you can just approach it like you said and ask for a bit of advice on how to handle the situation.

Oh absolutely. And I think the other part of that is, you hear about the open door policy. I tell our guys and gals all the time: “When my door’s open, and even if it’s not, it’s OK to knock.” There’s nothing I’m doing that’s more important than listening to them if they’ve got a question about something. I put everything down that I’m doing, because if they are not comfortable and they need an answer about something, then the wheels are not turning in the direction we need them to. So I can always pick up what I’m doing at another time, I need to make sure that they understand and they can get them an answer so they can keep doing their job.

There’s a lot of moving parts here, literally, and things are in flux all the time. Little fires might pop up that you need to put out, little crises. How do you stay calm in those moments? Is that just your personality that you’re very even, or is there something you do like take a deep breath?

I think the key there is you take the deep breath, because you try to keep the emotion out of it. Step back (and realize) we’ve got a situation, we have a crisis. Whatever you have, if you keep the emotion out of it, then 99 percent of the time, over time, you’ve had some experience in those situations in the past. And it will give you a first step — here’s what my first step is, here’s the box I need to check on this one to help me make those decisions going forward.

As an example, we deal with weather (during race weekends). We wake up in the morning, and we talk with our partners at the weather company, we’ve got some input there, we’re going to have rain for x amount of time. So then you just start checking the boxes: It’s raining. OK. At some point, it’s going to stop. We’ve got that information that it’s going to rain all day and you may have some periods of time where you can get the track dry. So you start from there making your decisions on, “All right, it’s going to stop raining here shortly.” We’ll start drying the track, we’ll look at how long that’s going to take.

My point is, you to a point where you’re checking boxes on your decision making. Being frustrated or being upset or having the emotion in it, a lot of times will make it very cloudy in the way that you make those decisions. So stand back and just take a deep breath and be able to basically make those decisions with a calmer thought process.

What are some other general tips that you like to see out of your employees or you think that other people could use in order to be a good team player?

The number one thing for me I always use is I reset every day. What happened yesterday is history, it’s in the rearview mirror. Good or bad, I need to get a good night’s rest, I need to be ready to go the next day, look at what the schedule is, whatever event — if it’s a Truck race, if it’s a Cup race, if it’s Xfinity, whatever that may be.

Don’t get too high on the good days, don’t get too low on the bad days, and then be able to reset the next day — and that comes from not just a mental aspect, but physically as well. You’ve got to make sure you’re getting the proper rest and nutrition, because you’re asked to make some really important decisions throughout your day.

It doesn’t matter what role or responsibility you have within your company — you’re there for a reason. You’ll be the guy that’s there at 5:30 in the morning to make sure all the offices have been vacuumed and all the trash cans have been cleaned, but it’s an important task. If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be on the agenda to be done.

Another thing for me as a ball and stick guy for years, athletes will get to the major league if they can hit curveballs. They’re not going to get there if all they can hit is a fastball. So I think in life, you’ve got to be able to hit the curveballs. Everybody can hit the fastballs, but you’ve got to be able to stand in there and be ready for the curves — and every day you’re going to get a curve. There’s going to be a curveball from the time you get up in the morning, there’s going to be one or two — there may be five or six — and you’ve got to be ready to adjust and hit the curveball.

And if you know it’s coming and expect it, then you’ll be better prepared.

You’ll be better prepared. Absolutely.

In this picture from 1998, Elton Sawyer and wife Patty Moise are shown in the Busch Series garage. Sawyer drove Fords for owner Bob Sutton while Moise drove for owner Michael Waltrip. (Photo by ISC Images and Archives via Getty Images)

The Driven Life: Jose Castillo on your secret recipe for success

This is the latest in a series of self-improvement/motivational-themed podcasts (also transcribed for those who prefer to read) involving people in the racing world sharing insight into successful habits. Up next: Jose Castillo, host and emcee of NASCAR Trackside Live and the video boards at Speedway Motorsports Inc. tracks.

We talked about finding things that you’re good at, and you seem to feel like that’s a secret to success. You have this crazy stat about people in their jobs not being happy, necessarily…

Yeah, and it all starts with the problem: Why are people unhappy? Why are they going through a life they don’t feel like is successful? And most of the time, the stats show that 70+ percent of people are unhappy in their jobs.

That’s amazing.

It is, and they get up every day, they go to work, they slog through it — and I know people (reading) right now, you’re going, “Man, that’s me.” And then you look at a successful person, right? That could be a race car driver, it could be a celebrity, it could be a business person, and you go, “Why is that person a success? What is it about them that they’ve figured out this magical formula?” And a lot of times, people turn to a book or something like, “If I just do this, I’ll become successful.”

I think it’s pretty simple: It boils down to people that are successful found out what makes them unique, what makes them different — and then they’ve been that person, and they’ve leaned into it, they’ve worked hard and they’ve very clearly defined success for themselves.

When you see that, a person that finds out what they were made to do and then they lean into it, you can see change — whether it’s change in the world or change in the people around them. I believe people can find that. They can find their own success.

So let’s say somebody reads that and they’re like, “That’s all good, but where would I even possibly start either looking for something else or finding what I’m good at? I don’t know what I’m good at.” How would someone even begin that process?

I love the Mark Twain quote where he says, “The two most important days in a person’s life are when they’re born and when they find out why.” And that, I think, is a critical moment for successful people when they figure out what’s their own unique piece they’ve been given. What are their gifts? What are their talents?

And part of that is an exploration project. You’ve got to find out what makes you different, and everybody’s different. That’s the other thing — I think a lot of people look at a successful person, they’re like, “Well, in order to be that, I have to be exactly like them.” And it’s not true at all. Most successful people are unique in their own right, they’ve figured out something that makes them different and they’ve leaned into that.

So the first thing you need to do is figure out what your own secret recipe is, and I like to do that by looking at history. A lot of times, we’re a blend of that nature vs. nurture, where some of it is genes from our parents, some of it is our surroundings that we’ve grown up in. But it’s a blend of that, and we need to explore that.

So the first thing you can do is find out your history. Where are you from? Your parents, your grandparents, your family, your lineage or ethnicity, your heritage, all of those things play into what makes you unique. And I think a lot of times, people shy away from that. They’re nervous about where they came from or maybe they didn’t grow up with money or maybe they didn’t grow up with the best family life or whatever that may be, and they’re shy or nervous about digging back into the past or the history.

Once you find out who you are, the second thing is you have to embrace it. You have to be like, “You know what This is who I am. This is where I’ve come from and this is what I’m going to be.” And I think it takes time and effort to do that, and that’s why I love history and why I love old photos and going back and talking to family members. I think any time you do a deep dive into your history, you start to find more about what makes you you.

I’ll tell a quick story. So I’ve been doing emcee hosting in NASCAR going on my 14th season. I had never been in NASCAR before that, and if you go back and listen to the podcast we did last year, you can hear some of that story. But I found out just a few years ago that my grandfather, who I never met and passed away in Mexico City, had announced a big baseball game. He had owned an arts studio and they had found out and it was like, “Oh, Joe Castillo’s big personality, we should get him to announce this game.” So I found out after being in NASCAR for years announcing and emcee hosting, that my grandfather had done that years ago — and that made that connection even stronger to me of why I am the way I am, because of the things that have happened in my past and my legacy and the people who have been a part of my life.

So your grandfather, it seems like was a big personality — your father (Joe Castillo) was on America’s Got Talent, is that correct?

Yeah, that’s right.

And he was very successful.

Yeah, he was.

And so obviously the performance aspect of being up on stage also runs in the family. So it sounds like you look back on that toolkit and you’re like, “Maybe this is something I’m inclined to be good at.”

Definitely. And I love telling the story about my dad just because a lot of people aren’t patient. If you’re not a follower of Gary Vaynerchuk, you need to be. He’s a friend of mine, we met years ago, and one of the most important things he says is to be patient. Nowadays, everybody wants everything now, and sometimes it takes time to develop and it takes dedication and hard work to get to where you want to go.

So my dad, world famous, was a finalist on America’s Got Talent, came in fifth place overall. Sand story artist Joe Castillo, you can search his name and find out about the sand artist. He didn’t become a star worldwide on America’s Got Talent until he was over 60 years old. Spent his whole life very successful in his own right — had an advertising agency and did commercial art — but his moment of success and becoming this worldwide celebrity wasn’t until later in life. He had kind of gone out and retired a little bit and all of a sudden, boom, this thing happens and his whole life had led him to that.

So patience is required. I think for a lot of people, they want it right now. But sometimes you just have to go, “You know what, I’m just going to work hard, stay the course, and if this thing happens, it’s going to happen.”

Once you’ve gone back and maybe researched a little bit about yourself, where would somebody go from there?

So once you find out what your secret recipe is, what I love to do is write it down. Write it down, put it on a piece of paper, and then judge it — take it to your friends, your family and be like, “Hey, here’s what I found out, I am these three or five things. This is who I am: I’m dependable, I’m reliable, I’m humorous, I love to be around people” — whatever it is, write it out, test it with people, and then put it in front of yourself so that you’re reminded every day when you do something, here’s how I should act.

And if you’re not acting in those ways, then you’re probably not in the right fit with your job or your life because if you really test and go, “OK, I’m this type of person, but man when I do this thing over here, I don’t feel like myself, I don’t feel like I’m getting any gratification from this or any joy” — that’s when a lot of people say you need to work in your passion, you need to find something you have joy in. And I think that’s true to a point, but I also think you can have joy in any of those moments if you’re following those principles that you’ve laid out for yourself.

So come up with your secret recipe, write it down, share it with people and then make sure that you’re playing it out in everyday life and in work that you do and your home life and your community. And when you start to recognize that and then see it played out, then you’ll kind of be able to know, “Oh, I’m in the right place, I’m doing the right thing, I’m doing what I should be doing.” Or, “I’m not, and I need to change.”

It sounds like for a career,  if things come easy or natural, that’s probably the right fit — but if you’re fighting it or it’s forced or something, you’re maybe not doing the right thing. Is that what I’m interpreting here?

Exactly. And you see people, you can spot them a mile away, that are trying to be something that they’re not. And you see somebody who’s either pretend or fake or they’re trying to put on airs and be someone they’re not and you can spot them a mile away. And then you look at people who are passionate in what they do and they love what they do, and it’s genuine and honest and you can tell. You can just look at somebody and go, “Man, they are doing what they were made to do.” And that’s what I love to see, is people who have found that and who are able to pursue it.

I would add a note in there that defining success is really important. Success is different for everyone. It could be money, it could be providing for their family, it could be success from a legacy standpoint of leaving something behind. So you need to make sure that you’re careful with how you define success. For most people, it might be, “I want to see somebody’s life changed” or “I want to make a million dollars.” Whatever it is. But if you don’t define that for yourself, then anything that comes along can kind of change your vision and move you around, so you have to be really focused on that.

Let’s say you have this written out and you’ve talked to your friends and they go, “Yeah, you are a kind-hearted person who would be good at this,” or something, right? How do you even get the courage to start saying, “OK, I’m going to start doing something about it.” Because it’s one thing to say, “I’d love to do this, maybe I could do this,” but people who’ve been doing something for a long time, it’s hard to get the courage to make a change.

The number one killer of dreams is fear. People are afraid of what if, what will happen. And we all experience that fear in our life at some points. I think one of the most important things is to think about experience. So you look back on your life and you’re like, “OK, I was really afraid of this moment.” And then when it happened, did it really turn out as bad as you thought it did? Most of the time, no.

Our brains are amazing at coming up with these stories that are never going to come to light. You sit there in your head and you’re like, “OK, I’m going to go ask my boss for a raise.” And you’re like, “No, he’s going to say no, and he’s going to yell and scream.” And then you go do it, and he doesn’t. You’re like, “Oh, I made that out in my mind to be bigger than what it was.” So first is recognizing that your brain can trick you, and you need to not be afraid in those moments and step into it and see, “OK, what will happen on the positive side? What good things could happen out of this?” to step over those fears.

But the other thing to do is surround yourself with the right people. I tell people all the time that you will become the average of your five closest friends. And when you say that to some people, their eyes kind of light up a little bit and they’re like, “Oh no. Who am I hanging out with?” Because you really will become the average of those five people that you hang around with.  So if they’re successful in what they’ve done, a greater likelihood is that you’re going to be successful. If they’re not successful, guess what? The greater likelihood is that you’re not going to be successful. So surrounding yourself with the right peer group and making sure that they’re cheering you on and they’re helping you get to the next level, is probably one of the most important things that you can do.

That’s such a great point because when you’re around cynical people or negative people, and you tend to want to join in and be like, “Yeah, that’s right, that sucks,” or something. And when you’re around happy people or positive people, who like you said are cheering you on and encouraging you, you’re like, “Yeah, maybe I can do this!” You know what I mean?

One hundred percent. And that’s what I love about a good team, is that you see it being one that works well together, that functions on a high level — and 99 times out of 100, they’re encouraging each other. They’re cheering each other on. They’re being humble and serving each other and helping each other out, and that’s something that is opposite of what most people think about when they think about being a successful person or successful teams. They think, “Well they’re out for themselves. They’re out just for number one.” But that’s not true. You look at the really good teams in life, and the really successful people, and there’s that level of humility and service that’s a part of the group that makes that person successful.

Let’s go back for a moment to the act of writing things down, because you mentioned that was important to write down your goals. Why do you think the writing part in particular, actually having it on a piece of paper and looking at it, why is that so important?

Well they did a couple studies, one of them in the Harvard Business Review, where they took a bunch of students and they said, “We’re going to feed them information and then give them a test to see how well they remember it.” And so first they said, “We’re just going to put them in a room and listen to a talk and see how well they remember that.” Then it was, “We’re going to put them in a room and have them listen to a talk and we’re going to have them write down on their laptops this information.” And the final one was, “We’re going to put them in a room, have them listen to information and then have them write it down with a pencil and paper.” And all the studies across the board showed writing things down with a physical pen to paper was vastly more effective for remembering and retaining information.

So first of all, the studies show that if you write something down with a pen and paper, you will remember it better. Step One is just being able to remember it, because this stuff flashes through our brain and it’s gone. The second thing is, when you do that over and over again, you start to tell your brain, you start to train your brain that these things are important to you. So finding out those things of who you are — some people call it a mission statement or a vision statement or whatever — but it’s really just who you are and how you should treat others. And when you write those things down again and again, those things start to become a pattern in your brain and your brain goes, “Yeah, this is who I am, this is how I need to act.”

It’s one thing I always do and you’ll see me — if anybody’s running around (at the track), come up to me and say, “Jose, I want to see your notebook.” In my back pocket every single day I carry a notebook, one every month, and I write in it at the very beginning what my mission statement is and how I should act every day. I do that every month. I fill up one of these little notebooks and I’ll tell you, it helps. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done, writing stuff down.

Jose Castillo shows off one of his monthly notebooks.

That’s so cool. I’ve actually wanted to do something like that for myself but I need to take the step to do it because it’s a reminder to yourself to do it.

It is, and it’s something where if you do something again and again, you’ll start to see patterns and things emerge with it that you’re not catching yourself, because you will. You’ll start to go down a path and you’ll wake up one day and be like, “This is not who I am. This is not who I set out to be. Why did that happen?” So that ritual of just writing things down can be really important for you.

Another thing, to go back to give people a couple more resources, is taking personality tests. We all take them when we get a new job or whatever, but they’ve become really popular. There are multiple personality tests out there that I could encourage you to go take, and that can really help you with finding out what your mission is, your “why”statement.

The hot one right now is Enneagram, and it’s a personality test, you go and it gives you kind of your strengths and how you should be acting when you’re in the right place, and how you’re going to act when you’re not in the right place, etc. Another one is StrengthsFinder 2.0, which is done by Gallup research, it’s another great one.

But taking those tests, they’re like $20 bucks online, you go take it, it gives you a nice, little eight, 10 sheets of paper that basically tells you your personality, who you are. And out of that, it’s very easy for you to kind of write your mission statement and be like, “Here’s who I am, and here’s how I act.”

When you write that down — and again, you want to make sure you test it — ask your friends, your family, your wife, your kids, “Hey, is this me?” “OK, yeah.” “Great, well then that’s how I should act.” And you start writing that down and it helps you stay on track.

What else am I missing as far as this journey that I didn’t ask you about that could help people on this road to changing their life?

The end goal is so important, and it’s that secret recipe that I believe everybody is unique and different. I really think that no one else has ever existed in the history of the world just like you. And if you think that’s the truth — and science backs it up — then why are we going about our life unhappy? If you’re the only one who has ever existed just like you, then you are super rare, and that’s something that needs to be shared with the world.

And so when you find out what your recipe is, the fact that you’re totally unique should inspire you to go, “Man, I need to share this with people,” because there’s nothing else like it! This is it; this is the only one that’s ever existed. So what better reason to share who you are than the fact that it’s super rare? Nobody else is going to see that.

So I think the encouragement that I would say to everybody listening right now is find out what makes you unique, find out who you are, why are you here, and then share that. And when you start to share that, and people give their information back, I think a lot of people are nervous about sharing who they are with somebody. It’s getting beyond that elevator conversation. Once you start to really dig in and you’re comfortable with sharing who you are with somebody else, that’s when it’s going to be really easy for you to define what success looks like, and you’re going to get there much quicker.

The Driven Life: Holly Cain on staying positive and surviving adversity

This is the latest in a series of self-improvement/motivational-themed interviews involving people in the racing world sharing insight into successful habits. Up next: Holly Cain, the longtime motorsports journalist who now writes for the NASCAR Wire Service.

You’ve been through some tremendous person struggles with breast cancer, where it looked really bad, and you have been able to overcome that and do that with a positive attitude at the same time. Hopefully what you’re saying will apply to people in their own personal struggles, even if it’s not a life or death situation like cancer. With your story, could you just give us some background on what were some of the struggles that you’ve gone through with this whole experience?

Here’s a story people might find kind of interesting, and it really speaks to almost making a choice — making a conscious choice to try and find an upside and a positive to something. When I first went to the doctor to find out what the situation was, I’d found some lumps and thought I needed to go. I got all the testing done and the doctor called back and said, “Can you come in tomorrow? We’d like you to come in and we’ll discuss this” — which is never a positive thing. Usually you think if you’re going to get a phone call, they’ll be like, “You’re all clear.” But they needed me to come in.

I had to tell my doctor at the time, “Could we wait two days?” because I was going to Washington D.C. with Jimmie Johnson to meet the President of the United States and write a story about it. And I remember the doctor laughing and she said, “That’s the best excuse I’ve ever heard not to come in and get your cancer results.”

My point in all of this was, even at a time when I was most scared, I had something else that I could kind of focus on and go to that was wonderful and remains a highlight of my life — to have that opportunity, to be inside the White House, and to do something like that. Looking back at that, (something to focus on was) a lot of what helped me through my darkest days of cancer. I was diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer; I am HER2-positive, which is kind of like an extra little thing that you get. Most women are not. Nine out of 10 people are not, but I was one out of 10, and it makes the treatment a little bit different and it’s a little bit worse on the cancer. It means it’s a different situation.

But I learned, and going to the White House is an example of this, you really have to focus on something that’s positive or a good to come out of it. Because if you let your mind wander and you let yourself get completely immersed…

I was scared to death, no doubt — I had two young kids at the time who were in middle school, and it was bad cancer. But I knew immediately that I had a choice, I had a conscious choice that I had to make. And on my roughest days, I really had to work hard at it, but you do have that choice and you have to force yourself to think of good things.

That just seems really tough to do. I can’t even put myself in your shoes of somebody saying there’s a decent chance you could die. How can you focus on something positive? What advice would you give to people to even find something positive?

Well that’s not to say there wasn’t a lot of crying, and that there wasn’t going to bed scared at night. That absolutely existed. I’ve never been more scared in my life.

But where I talk about making that choice is you can either go with that and become very sad and very depressed — and that doesn’t help you heal physically either, and my doctors pointed that out. And it sounds great just to say, “Think of a happy thing,” but I would literally lay there as sick as possible (and do that).

When I was so sick, I lost a ton of weight, I could barely lift my head up, I was literally in between chemo, having to go to the hospital every day of the week to get blood infusions just to give me enough energy that I could exist. I did not eat a morsel of food and I could not have a sip of a drink for nearly six months. All of my food and everything came through an IV. That’s how ill I was.

In telling you this, I would literally lay in bed or sit in the chemo chair or sit there getting a blood infusion and force myself to think of something good that happened that day. All of us have something. It may be waking up and seeing an incredibly blue sky — and I know that sounds corny, but if that’s what you’ve got, then that’s what it is. My kids may have made an A that day. It just really became the smallest of things. And it’s really a choice. You have to force yourself to find the upside because once you go down the slope, you go.

So the downside of that I guess is, if you’re not thinking that way, you’re thinking, “This is it…”

Everyone thinks like that at the beginning, especially when you’re diagnosed with a disease like that, especially at such a late stage. Of course you do. It’s not easy to do. It’s not easy. There’s so many days when I would sit there and be scared to death.

But ultimately it came down to, “Do you want to survive? Do you want to overcome?” And you have to decide to do that, and then you have to figure out how to go about it. But you have to make that conscious decision: “I don’t want to die, I want to overcome.” And like you said, it may not be cancer, it may not be an illness, it could be another challenge in life — but you ultimately at some point have to say, “I’m going to get through this.” And then force yourself.

So even if you’ve lost a partner or whatever it may be, the same concept applies to whatever you’re going through. You may not be sick, but you’re like, “OK, I am going to rally myself. I’m going to collect myself and somehow push through.” And it’s not going to be easy.

No, and it can be the smallest of things. It could be like when I was ill, people would reach out to me from NASCAR and I had people reach out to me who I never in a million years would think cared. And you know what? Just that phone call, that note, would mean so much to me, and I would literally think about it all day long. “Oh my gosh, how cool is this? So and so called.” Or, “Somebody sent me a text message. They care.” That helped me go through it.

And I will tell you, I unfortunately had quite a bit of practice of this. I’ve had several things throughout my life, I’ve had close friends of mine pass away at an early age in high school, I’ve gone through divorce, I’ve lost a parent. I’ve had these things, which we all do, we all have things like that happen. But again, it’s a choice and it’s a conscious choice, or maybe it’s an unconscious choice.

So if we can go off on a little bit of a tangent there, because you’ve touched on something, and I’ve always been curious about this. There’s always that thing, like, “What do I say to someone?” There’s nothing that you can say to this person that’s going through something to make them feel better. Like, “Feel better soon,” if somebody’s going through cancer doesn’t seem right. When you’re going through a hard time, is there something in particular that’s helpful to hear, and something in particular that’s not helpful to hear that you could give some insight on for people when they’re reaching out to somebody? What’s the right thing to say?

I discovered, and I hope this doesn’t sound trite, it really doesn’t matter what the person says — it’s that they’re reaching out to you. I couldn’t even tell you specific messages, really. And obviously, in cancer, the “Get well soon,” I know that it’s awkward for someone to figure out what the heck you say to someone going through cancer. Or when someone has lost someone that they love, it’s hard to tell them it will get better.

It’s not so much the specific message, but it’s the sentiment and the care that you went about doing it. I know from my point and I would think a lot of people it’s the same thing: it’s not the specific message, it’s the point that you cared enough to do that.

Even though you say the sentiment is there, is there anything that’s like really unproductive for someone to hear? You know, like medical advice or something like, “Have you tried this?”

That is a good point. I had a lot of medical advice, but again, I chose to look at it more as, that person may feel awkward, they don’t know what to say. It was the fact that they took the time to reach out to me, it didn’t matter what they said.

You felt like they meant well.

I thought they meant well. And you know, the medical advice, if you’re someone who wanted to think about that, I always kind of felt like my doctors had a little more handle on it, so I deferred. But I thought that was maybe the message that the person sending it felt more comfortable doing. So it wasn’t about me. Oftentimes just, “I’m thinking about you,” will work.

So back to like fighting through it when you’re going through things, like you mentioned a divorce and things like that, how do you sort of make gains each day? Because I imagine there’s not going to be one thing that you do that day where it just makes everything go away. So how do you sort of celebrate those gains and recognize that it’s not going to be a battle that can be won overnight?

Well that’s definitely true, and as you mentioned I went through a divorce the same time as the cancer, so I had a lot of real negative energy going on. That’s why I say I would find something and I would force myself to pay more attention to that one thing than I would all of the others. Again, I spent many a day crying, I was very sad, and the worst part of it was not knowing, you know? “Am I going to beat this or aren’t I?” And doctors can’t tell you that. They don’t know necessarily. And someone that you think may think fabulous at fighting it may not be that person. You really have no idea.

It’s the ultimate of the balls being in the air. Again, and they tell you this and it sounds corny, but the attitude, it does make a difference. It’s not easy to get the right attitude and you don’t have it everyday, you’re not going to say that. You don’t have it every day. You really have to fight to have the right attitude, it’s just as important.

You right now are at the other side of things, so you’re living a relatively normal life. Let’s address people who aren’t necessarily going through the battle but who just want to have a better perspective on daily life. Do you have a routine that helps you keep centered? Like what do you do?

I don’t have a routine and it probably sounds corny, but I’m fortunate that I live here in sunny Florida. Seeing a beautiful sunset, seeing a beautiful sunrise, having my kids tell me one positive thing that happened to them during the day, getting a phone call from someone, an email or a text or something like that and really having myself focus more on that than on the bad stuff. I do, I love life, and I didn’t want to give that up. Again, it’s something that’s a conscious or an unconscious decision.

Another thing I’d like to ask you is, even though you can sort of do that with yourself, it’s such a negative world. How do you still stay positive even though there’s a temptation to get sucked into the negativity? It’d be so easy, do you know what I mean?

I look at that almost like a challenge. Yes, you do get sad and the negativity hurts, but I refuse to let it beat me. I feel like if I can beat cancer, I can beat the negativity of someone in my life, I can handle a bad day if someone wants to start something. You know how it is, it’s just everyday steps. Something bad may happen with one of my children, they might get some bad news, so you know what I do? I spend a whole lot of effort trying to find something to bring them up. And when I bring them up, it brings me up. So it’s really not allowing the negative, almost to the point where I just cut it out in my mind, I ignore it.

So it’s just not an option.

Not an option. No. I know it’s not just people who have survived a major illness or something like that, but when I look at it, I have been through so much that I feel like I’m on extra time and I just want to use it in the best way I can, and if I can cheer someone else up, that’s another thing that I think is really important.

I have the most wonderful group of friends, I have a wonderful mom, I have great kids, and I always make sure if I’m down about something else, I reach out to someone and they bring me up. And it may be a different person every time, but I really am surrounded by great people and great friends, and that helps. And sometimes you have to reach out to someone, they may not know you’re going through a difficult situation, but really make use of the great hearts and the great souls who are surrounding you in life.

That’s really interesting that you say that because I feel like there’s a temptation sometimes when somebody’s going through something, we’re like, “I don’t want to bother that person with my problems.” But you’re saying it’s OK to reach out and try to lean on someone and say, “Hey, this is tough for me. I’m going through a struggle right now.”

And you don’t even have to say all the details. Just, “Hey, what’s going on, I thought I’d give you a call. How was your day?” And listen to them talk about it. Get your mind off wherever you’re going through, maybe you end up in the end cheering them up over something and you think, “Wow, I did something good.” And then that feels good. So you’re actually helping yourself to a certain extent by helping somebody else, and that happens quite a lot. And frankly, you may have called somebody because you were feeling down, they never even knew that, you’re helping them out and in the end you’re the one that’s better off. It almost feels selfish.

It’s sort of like little victories and things to celebrate along the way. Not everyday is going to be great, but it doesn’t mean it has to be a horrible day.

Just keep looking up, that’s what I do. Just keep looking up.

The Driven Life: Blake Koch on the power of positivity and passion

This is the latest in a series of self-improvement/motivational-themed interviews involving people in the racing world sharing insight into successful habits. Up next: Blake Koch, who founded the business FilterTime after losing his NASCAR ride.

We’re here at the track and you’re not driving. I’d think, “Oh geez, maybe he’s going to be down in the dumps.” But I follow you on social media, I see how your life’s going. You seem super happy. Obviously, you’ve had tough times and I’m sure you’ve had bad days, but you’ve managed to stay positive through all of it. How do you stay positive and how can people reading take some of that for themselves?

You’re right. I’m extremely happy, and to be honest with you, I had two good years there running in the playoffs and my career was taking a different path to the good side. It was fun, it was good — and then I lost my ride.

I was pretty upset and a little down for about a day. That was all I let myself kind of pout. I pouted for a day, like, “This shouldn’t happen,” and then you find yourself pouting and you’re like, “What’s that gonna do?” So I decided to pump myself up. You know me, I’m a Christian, so I prayed, like, “God, what do you want me to do next?” Nothing’s going to change from me sitting here and pouting, no one’s going to feel sorry for me, I have a wife and two kids, I’ve got to provide.

And I just started working. I didn’t even know what to work on, really, but I just was excited about what was going to happen next for me. I started doing the sponsor hunting, but doors were closing and no sponsors were showing interest, no teams were reaching out. I was like, “Man, God’s really shutting the door on driving. So what else should I do?”

An opportunity with FOX popped right up, and I was like, “Oh, this is great! I get to talk about the series I love, the Xfinity Series, on the show Race Hub. So that opportunity came in. And then (Matt) Tifft asked me if I was willing to help him. He was really looking forward to being my teammate over at RCR and asked if I’d be willing to help him work hard and teach him how to work hard, is what he said. And I said, “Dude, that sounds awesome, I’d love to help you!”

A part of the reason why I wasn’t a great driver is because I wanted to help people too much. I was too nice. So it really kind of fits me, because I get to be myself and actually help people like I really want to.

I know I’m going long on this answer, but how do I stay positive? I just start my day, every single morning, with some prayer, reading the Bible, and just motivating myself — listening to some motivational stuff (like) a podcast and just being grateful for everything I have: my wife, my kids, my family, my house.

I start my day like that every single day, and then I just attack. Whatever I can do to make today the best I can be is what I do. And I think what drives me is my passion, and my passion gives me that adrenaline — (even if) it’s selling air filters with FilterTime. Like I love FilterTime just as much as I did racing. I don’t know why, but I love when people email me and someone signs up and someone sends me a question about air filters. I just love it. So I think it’s just the passion that keeps me positive, motivated and just always on the go.

Going back to the times when before you realized there were other things out there like FilterTime for you and you’re on that sponsor hunt and the doors are closing, those had to be discouraging days. Even on those days, were you able to find some positivity? Let’s say someone’s been laid off and lost their job, they’re going through a job hunt right now. What advice would you give to people who are feeling like, “Man, I don’t feel like I have a sense of purpose right now, I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing, I’m looking for that next thing.” How do people sort of steer themselves in the right direction?

You just have to make yourself be positive, right? It’s not a natural thing for me. There’s days when I wake up and I’m just not motivated, not excited — but I don’t let myself think that way. I immediately stop and think about all the things that I’m grateful for; little things, right? Little things like I have a vehicle to drive, little things like knowing my wife and my kids, we’d be happy if we had to go live in hotels because we couldn’t afford a house, we’d be happy because we have each other. So me just knowing that we’d be happy in any and all circumstances is very comforting for me just to go where I feel led to go and work towards where I feel I need to be working at.

And like you said, there was a time where I didn’t know what I was going to do next. I carried a notebook with me everywhere, and I wrote down who I need to call today. Every morning I need to make five phone calls to teams or drivers, and then I need to make five phone calls to somebody in another area, and then I’m writing ideas down.

I’ve had ideas down on wrapping people’s garage doors to make it look good in front of their house instead of this white plain thing. I had an idea of a mobile oil change unit that I could start and go to people’s houses to change oil. I had all these ideas that I was ready and excited to go, but you start working on it and then you kind of feel like, “Ahh, that’s not really the direction I feel led, doors aren’t opening.”

Then when FilterTime popped in my head, I knew. The doors were just flying open everywhere and it was full force, everything was just lining up perfectly and that’s kind of when I knew my calling — my next calling was to start an air filter subscription business. (Grins)

What you said about forcing yourself to be positive is really interesting to me because I assumed in some ways, “He’s just a happy person. He’s just the kind of guy for whatever reason is not going to get down.” But when you say you had to stop yourself and say, “Wait, I see myself going down this path mentally, I’m starting to have negative thoughts creep in” — it sounds like it’s something you have to initiate within yourself. It doesn’t just happen.

Yeah, you just don’t lose weight by thinking about it. But a lot of that is surrounding yourself by good people, too. You are who you hang with, and there’s guys I can call — Trevor Bayne, Michael McDowell, Justin Allgaier — if I’m feeling a little down or whatever. And my wife, too, a lot of times I have to pump her up a little bit. But when she sees me getting down, she’s like, “Babe, it’s OK, it’s going to work out,” and she pumps me up, too.

But to give you an example, when I came to this track here in Daytona one year ago, the first time not driving in a decade, I was like, “Man, I’ve got to walk in this Xfinity garage and pretend to be happy.” But I committed to it, and people came up to me saying, “You were done wrong, it stinks you were bought out,” and my answer — I committed to making it positive — was, “No, it’s OK, it’s how it works, he deserves to be in the car.” And it’s just part of it.

Whether it’s social media or turning on the news, sometimes it’s kind of tough not to be affected by like what you see as the state of the world. How do you not let that seep into your life? How do you rise above that?

I think just not worrying about things. It would be really easy to worry about the world we live in and the direction it’s going and what kind of world are my kids going to live in. But there’s nothing you can do about it other than just have a positive attitude. For me, it’s being a great leader for my wife and my kids and just creating that positive energy in the house. And if I can help somebody else be positive, that’s one less person being negative on social media, you know?

Think about if everybody just stayed positive on social media. I think attitudes would be different, and quite frankly, the day would be a lot more enjoyable.

I’d also like to talk to you about the energy that you have to do this stuff. Where do you get the energy from? Is that a natural thing where you’re just feeling enthusiastic?

My dad is super passionate and energetic, too, so I do think there’s something in my genes that just gives me that drive. For me, I never drove a race car until I was 20 years old, made an Xfinity start at 24 or something. So that doesn’t happen by an unmotivated, undriven person. So I’ve always had it.

Even before I raced, before any of you guys knew me or who I was, I did pressure washing. I pressure washed houses for a paycheck, and I loved it. I wanted to be the best pressure washer in the world, I was so competitive to make sure people were happy with the work I did.

So I think just naturally, I just want to be the best at whatever I’m doing, and that all starts with goals. You’ve got to have short-term goals. I have a goal every day of what I want to accomplish in the day, I have weekly goals, I have annual goals and I have five-year goals. And you know, if you are being lazy that day, it’s not going to get you any closer to your goal.

It all comes down to starting your day off right. I don’t sleep in, I wake up early — 5:30 or 6:00, before my family — I go into my office, I read, pray, write down goals and mentally get prepared for life. Life is tough. You’re going to have to make so many decisions every day, you’re going to hear so many bad things throughout the day that you have to really get prepared for it.

You’ve talked about your goals. You said you have daily goals, all the way up to five-year goals. Is that stuff you write down in your notebook, or is that just in your head?

Yeah, I have a whiteboard in my office. It’s like a three foot by five foot whiteboard on the wall, and I just write them on that whiteboard. And those aren’t little goals; those aren’t like, “Call this somebody.” Those are big goals. Like with FilterTime, it was, “Start FilterTime.”

For me, what I knew I wanted to do was something that was helping people and competition and something that can help me provide for my family. So those were the three things I knew I wanted to do after racing.

Helping people is my driver coaching — I work with Harrison Burton and Tifft, sharing the stuff I’ve learned over 10 years that I can help these guys with and give them true honesty. I really love doing that. The competitive side is that and the FOX Race Hub thing, so I knew that was happening. And then when the air filter business started obviously, that was helping people change air filters and it’s making me money. So that was kind of tying it all together.

If somebody just needs like a kick or a pep in their step or something, what do you think is one thing or one change they could make to sort of just help their overall life?

Literally, you have to be positive and passionate. Life and careers and jobs is all about relationships, people. And people don’t like hanging around and talking to negative people. They just don’t. So if you’re expecting to advance in your career, advance whatever you are doing, it’s all about relationships that people like to be around. If you’re not naturally positive, you’ve got to make yourself be positive. It’s just really not an option.

The Driven Life: Jimmie Johnson on finding motivation to be healthy

This is the first in a series of self-improvement/motivational-themed interviews involving people in the racing world sharing insight into successful habits. Up first: Hendrick Motorsports’ Jimmie Johnson, who offers tips on how the average person can choose a healthier lifestyle.

I know you started a little bit later in life compared to some others. How old were you when you first started getting serious about working out and all that?

I swam in high school and grew up racing motocross — both super physical — and I was in great shape then. But as I started my four-wheel career, there was so much to learn about the vehicles and the tracks and there’s traveling and driving equipment to the races, and I developed all these bad habits along the way of eating at truck stops and fast food — and the fitness just tanked.

So I would say up until 17, 18, I was fit and an athlete and then had this hiatus for a long period of time. I would say probably ’08, ’09, somewhere around there is when I started to get serious again (in his early-30s), and it filled some piece inside of me from my day of feeling accomplished, feeling good about myself, confidence going up and I know that I’m doing that’s important for my career. There’s a lot of positive boxes that I mentally check when I get my workout in, and it’s evolved into many things. But just at a very basic level, that hour or whatever it ends up being in a day, is just vital for me and it gives me such a positive outlook on the rest of the day.

A lot of people have at least tried to get on a workout program, getting healthy habits at some point in life, or maybe they’ve tried diets that haven’t worked out. I noticed that you’ve really stayed consistent with it — and obviously part of it is you’re a professional athlete — but also a lot of it is that you’re doing it on your own. I see sometimes you’ll go on vacation, so you do get off it for a couple days and let yourself enjoy life, but then you go back on it. So how do people, if they want to be healthier, how do they stick with it? What are some of the steps they should take?

I think being honest with yourself about what works for you. New Year’s rolls around and we’re all guilty of saying, “I need to lose 10 pounds, I need to go on some crash diet,” and that’s not sustainable. Three or four days in, you’re like, “The heck with it. I’m out.” So I think setting realistic goals, trying to make just a small change to start with and carrying that for a month — if it’s your eating habits or your training habits, just put one foot in front of the other, literally. Just one step at a time, see what works for you.

And then from there, trying to find things that you enjoy. Being outside has been a big part for me and why cycling and running and all that has worked so well. I just like being outside and that pulls me out.

Signing up for a fitness event is another really good tool for me. For some reason, when I commit to doing some event, I’ll get up earlier or I’ll stay up later, I’ll eat better, like there’s motivation within that. So I think setting some realistic goals and then trying to chase them down from there is really important.

It sounds like to not put too much pressure on yourself. Like you want to better yourself, but without getting to the point where you’re going to fail and then you’re just going to fall off the wagon completely.

I think so. I honestly believe that fitness, health, quality of life, a healthy life — it’s a journey. It’s not like something you’re going to do (overnight). There’s no silver bullet, there’s no quick fix. You need to make adjustments that are going to last through your lifetime, and having a realistic approach and thinking of it as a long journey, I think, is much more useful. And maybe not for all personalities, but for most, I think having that long-term view is key, so you set some realistic goals.

If we can get kind of specific here, it seems like consistently you get up early to do a lot of your workouts, and you have two kids at home. My excuse for myself would be, “Well, I need all the sleep I can get, I’m maxed out with this, I’ve got a lot going on in my life. I just need that extra hour of sleep.” Whereas I see you, you’re getting up at 4:30, 5, something like that to go work out. How do you get yourself up out of bed to do that in the first place?

For me, it’s not easy, and the hardest part is literally putting my feet on the ground and getting out of the bed. From there, everything gets easier as I go. But the way my life works and the way our house works, the kids get up at 6:30, and they go to bed at 7:30, so if I’m going to work out after the house goes down, it’s just not going to work. I’m exhausted. And I find I don’t put in the effort or have the motivation to train later in the day, so I try to get it done early if I can.

Oftentimes, in order to get up early, I’ve got to go to bed early. So the kids go down about 7:30, and I put my phone on silent mode and I’m out most nights by 8, 8:30. That’s the only way. I still need my eight hours of sleep. I mean, I can get by on five to six for a couple days, but I get cranky and don’t function well, so I’ve just got to go to bed earlier to get up earlier.

And then how about with temperatures, because I see that as another excuse that I see myself slide by with. Like it’s either too hot outside or it’s too cold. You live in Charlotte and you also live in Aspen, so you’re having a lot of extremes with the temperature — and yet that doesn’t stop you from working out. So how do you not let that create an excuse for yourself?

I think that’s the nicest thing about my interest in being outdoors, there’s a lot of versatility and sports and a lot of opportunities that I have. In Colorado, one thing that I love to do is to go uphilling or go skinning — you have these downhill skis with carpets on the bottom and the boots and bindings work in a way where you can hike up the hill and you can lock in and you can ski down. So when it’s cold and I want to get a workout in, I do that quite often. I’ll just skip going up on the lift and at least do one trip up the mountain, which is probably an hour, hour and a half to get up. And then ski down and then jump on the lift and do it after that.

So you’ve just got to be creative and take advantage of the environment you’re in. Cycling is tough in the winter; I kind of cycle less because it’s hard to stay warm on a bike. But running works really well, and even going to a pool and swimming works really well.

So just keeping an open mind, and again, thinking of that long-term thing: I just want to have a healthy life and I want to feel good about myself, and I really like to eat — so if I wasn’t training and burning all these calories, I don’t think I’d fit in my suit.

Speaking of eating and diet and things like that, I was at Supercross earlier this year and Aldon Baker, who trains some of the guys, I mean he’s talking about no cheat days ever. He won’t let Jason Anderson and Marvin Musquin enjoy Thanksgiving, nothing. And I see you, you like ice cream, you said you like to eat. So obviously you allow yourself something while still trying to stay healthy. How do you manage eating well with also enjoying the food?

Everybody needs to be pushed and everybody needs to be uncomfortable to succeed, right? I firmly believe in that. I go through windows at times through the season where I get hardcore like that. The motocross world in general, their career span is much shorter than NASCAR. So there’s no way one of those riders is going to go 18 seasons living like that. I have many friends that have ridden for Aldon and they’ve got about a five- to six-year window where they can live life like that, and then they just can’t do it anymore. It’s a tough pace to keep up.

So it depends on what you’re doing. You’ve got to be realistic with yourself and your environment, what you need to be successful. In car racing, we don’t need to be as regimented as those guys do. We just don’t. I’ve found what works for me and I’m playing the long game. A lot of those motocross riders, it’s a short season for starters when you just look at Supercross alone, and then a short career where they’ve got to be so committed. And I respect them all for how high that commitment level is, not only from a fitness and nutrition side, but also the danger that’s involved in riding those things.

So if someone is reading this and they’ve never done anything or never tried to work out, they feel like they can’t do it and they’re just not an athlete, what are the basic first steps they can do just to start? How does somebody learn where to start that’s healthy for them?

I think first and foremost, it’s about not making excuses. And I’m not saying in a way that is harmful or dangerous for yourself, but we all have that little voice that tells us what we probably should do, and it’s usually a really faint soft voice in the back of our minds. Maybe listen to that a little more.

And then just take some realistic first steps to get going. Depending on your health requirements or issues, an event that you have coming up, whatever it might be, there’s different reasons to be highly motivated. And in most cases, and certainly for most of the readers, I think it’s about just consistency.

I see a lot of people start off and they do too much, too soon. If it’s too crazy of a diet, too much lifting, too much running, too much riding and they come out of the gate and they almost burn themselves out in a short period of time. My coach often says, “Quality over quantity.” Just get a quality base started, diet and fitness-wise, and then let the quantity show up down the road if you’re enjoying it.