162: Change Your Life in 8 Steps with Dave Albin | Firewalk Captain for Tony Robbins

[00:00:15] Zach White: will be the first guest ever to start our conversation about. You and your journey before you were born.

[00:00:24] So where do we begin? You have so much in your journey to share wisdom and experiences. And, and he said, let’s start two months before you even came to the planet, in full form. So Dave, what happened? What’s going on two months before your 

[00:00:39] Dave Albin: birthday?

[00:00:40] well, my biological father, he was a pilot in Korea and we don’t know exactly what happened to him. All we know is he hurt his head. And so to save his life, Zach, they put a plate in his head. That’s the technology they had in 1954. Right. And it was extremely painful, apparently very excruciating.

[00:00:57] Used to tell mom all the time, didn’t know how much longer he could take it. So literally two months before I’m born, he turns to mom and says, I’m going to the grocery store. We never saw or heard from him again. So we assumed he took his own life. And so when I was born, I was born to a single mom. I had two stepbrothers, 

[00:01:13] and so we were all living in a one bedroom apartment in Hollywood, California. So there were my two stepbrothers, myself, a cousin, my mother and my grandmother. So there were six mouths to feed. And mom was the only one that was pulling in any dough. Mom came from that era, man. She’s a badass, right?

[00:01:30] She, she went through the great depression. During World War II. She was just like all the other women in the U S doing everything they could to save the world. Mom just happened to be Rosie, the riveter. So she was up on the wing of that airplane, driving those rivets in with Donald Douglas, right? Make an airplane.

[00:01:49] So she wasn’t afraid of hard work. cause back in those days you had to do everything, right? You had to grow your own food. So your own clothes, life was different. Life was much harder. And so, when I was five years old. She couldn’t feed me. And so she did a very loving thing. She went to her oldest sister, Pat, who was married to Bob Albin.

[00:02:08] And, uh, she said, well, you guys adopt David. And they said, yes. And so they took me from Hollywood, California to long beach, California, Bob Alvin, military, highly decorated, full time army, full time national guard worked in the Pentagon. so we had a nice house. We had money, we had things, we went camping.

[00:02:27] I mean, it was a beautiful life when I got there. when I was 11 years old, six years after they adopted me, On the first day of summer, 1964, I’m in the TV room. Mom comes and gets me. It’s what seven o’clock in the morning, seven 30, whatever. She brings me in the kitchen, sets me down and she goes, David, we need to tell you something.

[00:02:45] She puts her hand on my arm, never forget the look in her eyes. And she said, David, what we need to tell you is we’re not your parents. Oh, okay. All right. Well, what the hell does that mean? What do you mean? You’re not my parents? Of course, you’re my parents, right? you can’t process that at 11 years old.

[00:03:01] It’s like taking somebody outside and saying, yeah, sky’s not see the sky. Well, I know it looks blue, but it’s not blue. Yeah. Well, that’s not blue. It looks pretty blue to me. So she went on to tell me that, you know, your aunt dean. Yeah, she goes that’s your biological mother She gave birth to you and i’m like, I don’t even like her Right?

[00:03:20] And the reason I didn’t like her is because when she was around me, she wanted to be around me. She wanted to sit next to me, hold me, hug me, kiss me. You know, well, duh! I was her son. And only had so much time around me. So, you know, she took advantage of it. And again, it was never inappropriate. It was just that, you know, she was just like right here.

[00:03:38] Yeah, just being a mom. Yeah, being a mom. 

[00:03:41] Zach White: You said the adoption happened at age five. Is that right? Do you have any real memories or vivid memories at all before that time? Or it’s kind of pieced back together from stories from the adults. 

[00:03:53] Dave Albin: It was kind of like, I’m in long beach, I’m in Hollywood, I’m in Hollywood, I’m in long beach.

[00:03:58] it was all mixed together. Yeah. My cousin went to Hollywood High School, so she knew some actors and actresses. Her mother, my Aunt Jo, was a very up and coming Hollywood star. She played in The Grapes of Wrath. Oh, wow. She was in some pretty decent movies. Full blown alcoholic.

[00:04:15] Ended up dying years later of cirrhosis of the liver in the same hospital where I was born, Queen of Angels. There was a lot of alcoholism in my family. Hmm. 

[00:04:23] Zach White: So you’re 11 and you get told the sky is not actually blue. Right. And where does that lead your life? What happens?

[00:04:32] Well, 

[00:04:33] Dave Albin: a couple of weeks after they told me this, they both started drinking. They swore off drinking when they adopted me at age five. So when that happened, things changed radically. My, my life just went and took, talk about a hard turn. Pat was kind of a fun laughing, drunk, right? She drank pass out, but she was kind of a friendly drunk, right?

[00:04:56] Bob knew not so much. He was mean, he was not a good human when he was drinking. And so I had to start dealing with that at a very, very young age. Well, one day they went to the grocery store back in the sixties. You could do that. You leave your kids home. He didn’t care. Right. Call the neighbor across the street.

[00:05:11] Hey, Joanne, we’re going to the store. Bob and I, David needs anything. Can he come knock on your door? Yeah, sure. Of course. No problem. Tell him to come over now, I’ll fix him a fried bologna sandwich. So they left. Well, I knew where the booze was and I had it planned out. I wanted to know what this stuff is.

[00:05:27] I don’t know what’s going on, Zach. I just know they’re drinking this stuff and they’re acting out. I don’t know what it is. And so when they left, man, I went and got a coffee cup, filled it up about halfway and boom, down it went. I never had a chance. I totally believe I was an alcoholic right on the spot.

[00:05:44] I started acting out. I started thinking about it, cause it makes you feel like Superman, right? it’s like rocket fuel in your body. And so I chased it with everything I had from that moment. And of course it just gets worse, right? You start hanging around the wrong people. Next thing you know, you get introduced to drugs.

[00:06:02] So by the time I’m a junior in high school, They brought me in the principal’s office shortly after the school started in my junior year and said, Albin out, you’re done. So they expelled me and I didn’t care. I didn’t care. Cause it wasn’t like I go, Oh gosh, I’m not going to be able to make a living.

[00:06:19] No, I was already an entrepreneur at a young age. Uh, mom used to grow beautiful flowers in the backyard she knew how to cut them. She would actually arrange them in beautiful colors and she would cut the flower at an angle, not at the bottom at an angle that opened up the surface area for water.

[00:06:34] Right. And then she would bundle them up for me and tie them up so I could sell them in bouquets. And then she’d put them in a bucket and she’d pour about this much seven up in the bottom. Interesting. And it was the sugar, I guess, the caramelization. It would, my flowers would outlast the local florist three to one, and I’m not selling them on the street corner.

[00:06:53] Zach White: Your first marketing pitch, Dave, my flowers, the 

[00:06:56] Dave Albin: grocer three to one. Here’s the guy that would pull up. And it was always the men, the women never negotiated. The man would say, Hey, you know, cause I’m selling them for a dollar. He’d say, I’ll give you a dollar 50 for two. And I’d go, no, no, thank you.

[00:07:09] Well, what do you mean? Well, why, why should I do that? The next guy that pulls up will gimme a dollar. Why have to, why should I sell it to you? Right. And they’d gimme two bucks. They liked it, you know, like, Hey, this kid’s pretty sharp, right? Yeah. I also had a paper route, that’s a seven day job, man.

[00:07:23] You got to pick up your papers every day, load them on your bike, go deliver them, you know, collect, do all of it. 

[00:07:28] Zach White: How’d you manage to keep the jobs in the business going with the alcohol and the drugs and the lifestyle and keep that in 

[00:07:37] Dave Albin: balance? That’s a really good question. I, you know, sometimes I, I have no idea.

[00:07:42] I just, or somehow I just seem to manage. Wow. Cause that wasn’t it either. Because I grew across the street from a golf course. And here’s what I learned about golfers at a young age. They suck. Right. And so what I would do is I’d get on my stingray bicycle, man, and I’d ride the perimeter, Eric. And so it was like, guess what?

[00:08:01] I found everywhere. They were everywhere. All over the place. Little white things, golf balls. I take them home and I clean them up, Zach, and I go back to the golf course and the balls, they came in, they throw them out in the trash cans, right? The new balls. So I, I would just after I cleaned them up, I just put them in the box and I go back to the park, go back in the parking lot.

[00:08:21] So I’m back. Right. So, yeah, I was all doing this at a young age, at a very young age, here’s, here was my belief system. There’s money out there. Go get it. So at 11, 12 years old, that’s a pretty empowering thing. So again, when I got kicked out of high school, I didn’t care. Who cares? I went and got a job that day.

[00:08:39] Zach White: Thank you. Now I don’t have to 

[00:08:40] Dave Albin: come here. No, I don’t have to come here. I can go get a job in a short amount of time. I went out and bought a new Mach 1 Mustang. I went, I got my own apartment, the downtown Belmont shore, California, really beautiful overlook the Bay. I mean, holy mackerel. And I’m what? 17.

[00:08:57] Okay. So. That’s kind of how my life went. Now I needed a good job because my drug addiction was starting to escalate, right? and then I’ll just kind of move this forward. got married to my childhood sweetheart that lasted a couple of weeks. I married another woman that I love dearly who got me out of California.

[00:09:14] She got me to the East coast, saved my life there. let’s just say there were some drug dealers in Southern California that wanted to get their hands around my neck. And if you’re listening, well, Statue of Limitations, they probably aren’t still alive anyway. so, um, and then I, after I got divorced from wife number two, I met wife number three.

[00:09:32] She was a bartender. She had three kids and I married her because I thought, well, maybe these kids will help turn my life around. Calm me down. Calm me down. Yeah. Good. Better word. Calm me down. And it did for about three weeks and then boom, it all comes back. Right. And uh, so on June 8th, 1988, I woke up that morning.

[00:09:49] And that was, uh, that was the day for me, man. I’m like, I’m done. I’m out. I’m not doing this anymore. I’m in massive physical pain and emotional pain because I’m dealing with heroin, cocaine, alcohol, cigarettes, I’m not eating right, I’m dehydrated. I mean, I’m a, I’m a plane wreck, you know, a plane crash, a car wreck, and a, train wreck all wrapped into one.

[00:10:12] And so when I woke up that morning, I said, that’s it. I’m done. I’m out. And the only thought I had in that moment was take your life. And so I loaded my pistol and I’m moving forward with that. The pain’s that bad. Then it dawns on me, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Timeout. If you pull that trigger, yeah, maybe you think your problems are over, but those three kids upstairs in that family that you love, you’re going to destroy them.

[00:10:39] Yeah. And you, you know, we know, we, we learned the hard way. Unfortunately, sometimes people take their life and what they do is they kill everybody around. Right. And so it’s that permitted answer 

[00:10:48] Zach White: to a temporary problem. Amazing that that thought popped in at all. It did. I mean, what a miracle for you. It was 

[00:10:53] Dave Albin: a, it was a thought of compassion.

[00:10:55] In fact, I had a conversation with one of Tony’s psychiatrists that comes to, In his environment. And he said, dude, that was a moment of compassion that saved your ass. It really did. so I’m like, well, what are you, then what are you going to do? Right. Well, I’m going to call this organization called Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:11:12] Well, you know, what’s interesting about that, Zach, I didn’t even know who the hell AA was. I’d never been to a meeting. I didn’t know anybody in AA. Where’d 

[00:11:18] Zach White: that come from? Wait, did somebody tell you to call them or you just had that thought pop in? 

[00:11:22] Dave Albin: Nope. Thought came in my head. Wow. I dialed 411, asked for Alcoholics Anonymous.

[00:11:27] I got ahold of Intergroup. And the next thing I know, I’m talking to this amazing woman on the phone that I’ve affectionately over the years, nicknamed her Madge. And the reason I nicknamed her Madge is because she talks like this, right? She’s probably smoking two packs of Paul Ball non filters a day.

[00:11:46] She was a badass, man. She’s the gatekeeper. It’s her job to interview you. And if she thinks you’re a good risk, she’ll call one of the guys in AA to come pick you up and take you to a meeting. And she did save my life. So I got in the car with Lauren. Lauren took me to an AA meeting and all men’s group in Fairfax, Virginia.

[00:12:07] And And I went to four meetings in one day at 12 34 8 30. And when I went out the door, they gave me one of these. It’s a medallion said 24 hours on the back. It said to thy own self be true. And so they gave me one at one month. Two months, three months, six months, nine months in one year. I picked one up this year for 35 years.

[00:12:32] 35 

[00:12:33] Zach White: years. Okay. Let’s pause and just celebrate that. I want to acknowledge you, Dave. I mean, already an incredible life story, but 35 years sober after that start. Yeah, that is so cool. Talk 

[00:12:47] Dave Albin: about a blessing and that’s what it does. Right? So what happened was, when I was first getting sober early on, I had insomnia, so I was up late at night all the time.

[00:12:56] My sleep patterns were all over the place and I’m up late one night. There he is 1988, a young, enthusiastic Tony Robbins. Here he comes back 

[00:13:09] Zach White: of the day. 

[00:13:10] Dave Albin: He was the infomercial King, right? That’s right. Uh, he was selling personal power, a 30 day program through Gunther Ranker. And you know what? Zach, I couldn’t stand it.

[00:13:21] I did not like the guy. I thought he was pompous. I thought he was a big mouth. He was an ass. He’s all motivated, you know, and I’m like, and I’m not, I’m miserable. Right. But he said two things that got me, I mean, got me good. The first thing he said was we’ll do more to avoid pain than we will to gain pleasure.

[00:13:38] And I’m like, holy crap. Is he talking directly to me? Cause that’s all I did with drugs and alcohol. I was either trying to get away from pain or I was trying to chase some pleasure. So that, when he said that it resonated and then he, what really got me, he said, you know, let me tell you how we make decisions as human beings.

[00:13:54] When we make a decision, it’s based on one of two things, inspiration or desperation. Yes. I 

[00:14:02] Zach White: love that line. 

[00:14:03] Dave Albin: He’s talking to me, right? Cause I’m pretty desperate. So 

[00:14:07] Zach White: Dave, let me get curious with you here. You’re, you’re just about to embark on the Tony Robbins chapter of life. And I’m so excited to hear that, but you made a comment earlier about a belief.

[00:14:18] That got installed in you early because of the upbringing, because of the experiences you had, there’s money out there, go get it. I’m curious, what other beliefs, if we go to like that moment, right around the AA and Tony time, like, if I paused your story there and said, what was the, the conditioning, the belief system that you were operating in at that time, what else do you remember?

[00:14:40] What is the way you Saw the world. What beliefs did you hold prior to, getting introduced to Tony Robbins? 

[00:14:48] Dave Albin: Well, I had been exposed to a bunch of men in AA that loved me unconditionally. so I knew there was something going on with that. I mean, I had a bunch of men, they just loved me, man. And so I could love myself. In fact, uh, the second day on day two of, of my, of my career and alcoholics anonymous, I woke up that morning. I was in horrible shape. The withdrawals were insane. Yeah. Alcohol, cocaine, and heroin at the same time. not a fun place to be.

[00:15:17] And so my phone rang at like eight 30 in the morning. And when I answered the phone, it was John. And John goes, Hey, Dave, good morning. It’s John from AA. How you doing this morning? And I’m like, how do you think I’m doing? I want to kill somebody, dude. I might start with you. For calling me at 8 30. He’s like, yeah.

[00:15:32] Yeah. Yeah. He goes. I hear you. Hey, listen, man, You know, we talked last night. I live right around the corner from you. I know exactly where you live Let me come pick you up. Let me take you to breakfast and let’s go to a meeting today. What? Wow, i’m threatening this guy and i’m serious. I’m a i’m dangerous at that moment of my life John’s like, I got your back, man.

[00:15:53] And so that’s what I learned in AA. That’s how my belief system started changing. And I was being influenced by how AA worked. Right? Because if you look at AA, you got the 12 steps that you put your life back together. You got the 12 traditions that helps you operate within the group. And then in the middle, you got the preamble and here’s what the preamble says.

[00:16:10] It says, when anyone anywhere reaches out, I want the hand of AA to be there. And for that, I’m responsible. Whoa. Okay. I’ll take that creed. I’ll take that oath. And so I was locked in. I was a gatekeeper, man. And I was good at it because I knew when that guy came through that door, that man or woman, well, mostly men, because it was an all men’s group, but I knew their life was on the line.

[00:16:35] Yeah, this isn’t the Elks Lodge. This isn’t, the Qantas club here. This is Alcoholics Anonymous and everybody that walks through that door every day. We have a daily reprieve based on the condition, you know, of us, how we handle things spiritually. And so, you know, I was watching guys die. No doubt about it.

[00:16:51] So I, took that really, really seriously. Wow. So what happened was, is that all of a sudden here’s AA and now here’s the personal development industry. And it collided in my life at the same time, which is very rare. That doesn’t normally happen. Right. So I had a heck of an advantage. because again, once I got to the point where I bought that program, Oh, you did buy a copy 

[00:17:13] Zach White: of personal 

[00:17:14] Dave Albin: power.

[00:17:14] Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. He sent it to me and I bought it. And, um, fact, it came on little white things called cassette tapes. Right. So, yeah, and I did it, I went through it and I did exactly what Tony told me to do. And it worked. Well, what I did was, is I ended up loaning it to a buddy of mine in AA, my buddy, Dan, the butcher who, and I just lost Dan two weeks ago.

[00:17:36] Um, and so he went through it too. Well, seven years later in 1995, Dan calls me on the phone and said, Hey, dude, did you know that Tony Robbins is coming to town? I’m like, no, I had no idea. And he’s like, oh, come on, you got to go with me. You got me into this. You’re going with me. All right, I’ll go. I’m in.

[00:17:53] Let’s do it. Right. Yeah. So he goes, let me call you back. Calls me back like an hour later and he goes, done. Here’s what they told us to do. Drink a lot of water. You must stay hydrated, bring snacks. You’re going to spend a lot of time. I’m laughing, you know, right? Spend a lot of time in the room. Are you kidding me?

[00:18:10] Uh, what an understatement. And then he said, Hey, I’d be ready to play full out and bring a good attitude. I was like, Dan, how much did a ticket cost? He said 695 in 1995. I’m like, Holy crap. He goes, don’t worry. You can pay me back. I’ll, I’ll pay you back. But 695, what’s that worth today? 

[00:18:29] And as he’s getting ready to get off the phone, he goes, oh, wait. Before you go, I need to tell you something. I left out, almost left out. The most important part, we’re gonna be doing a fire walk. You what? I’m, I’m, I’m thinking, no, we’re not. Hell no. Maybe you are. You are and I’m not. You are not me. But I don’t know what a fire walk is, but I’m saying no to it.

[00:18:49] So it comes back to your question, right? Mm-Hmm. . What was my mindset back in those days? Fear. Fear was controlling everything I did and it influenced everything I did. Every single decision. So what did fear mean to me in that moment? Forget everything and run. That was it. That’s how I live my life. So, you know, we get to the event, big day comes, we get there.

[00:19:13] Tony takes a stage at two o’clock in the afternoon. Next thing I know it’s after midnight. Been in a room for 10 hours with Tony Robbins. You’ve got to be kidding me, right? Bring snacks, right? You’ll starve to death. And all of a sudden Tony goes, take your shoes off. And I’m like, Oh no, no, no, no, pal, you’re not tricking me.

[00:19:33] I see where you’re going with that. I’m not taking my shoes off. Well, I got a problem. My problem is I’m in a room with 3, 500 people and guess what’s they’re doing. 

[00:19:42] Zach White: Everyone else is taking the shoes off. 

[00:19:44] Dave Albin: I’m like, Oh, don’t go towards the light. You’re falling for it people. And so now my dilemma is what am I going to do?

[00:19:50] Not take my shoes out and walk out there and let 3, 500 people are going to see me with my shoes on. No, I’m not going to live with that. So I’m like, just calm down, relax, take your shoes off. And when you get out there, just go hide in the back. No one is going to know period, end of story, you don’t lose Dan on your way out there, which I did my buddy.

[00:20:08] I ditched him and I got out there and I, of course it’s worse when he gets you going out there. You probably know this. He gets everybody clapping and chanting. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And then you get out there and he’s got African drummers, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. Yes. Yeah. What a dog and pony show.

[00:20:27] You got to be kidding me. And so, as you know, when you get out there, there’s a giant fire. They take you out of this big parking lot, firewalk 3, 500 people logistically, right? Got a big fire over there. That lane is that big pit is probably 35 feet wide, 70 feet long, been burning all day. They’ve thrown.

[00:20:45] 20 cords of wood on it and it burns it at the end of the end of the end of the evening, it renders. So you’ve got this big, giant, beautiful pile of blue coals. It’s absolutely gorgeous. So how do you, set up the fire walk? Will you take a wheelbarrow over to the pit? You load the coals in a wheelbarrow.

[00:21:03] You bring a wheelbarrow in between two lanes of sod of grass. It’s called a fire lane, three feet wide, 18 feet long. And they just take a flathead shovel and they sprinkle those coals on top of that grass on that fire lane and that’s what you walk on. Well, I’m hiding in the back because I’m not doing it.

[00:21:22] Here’s what Tony knows. Tony brought firewalking into his events because he knew that it was one of the most life changing experiences on earth. He knows it. It’s been around a thousand years. Go look it up. Cultures all around the world have been using it forever. The Phoenicians, the people of India, the Polynesians, the Hawaiians, the native American Indians, the Portuguese, the Spaniards, hell, the Indo Europeans used it years ago before the men went into battle, they always did a firewall.

[00:21:51] So Tony knows it’s going to cause a paradigm shift and it’s a life changing experience. He also knows there’s people like me that are trying to get out of it. So what’s he do? He trains people to come find you. I’m back there thinking I got it all figured out. Right? Not so much. Here he comes. He finds me, he makes eye contact with me and he won’t take his eyes off me.

[00:22:14] I’m pretty sure they trained him to do that, right? And so he gets about maybe 20 feet from me and he’s looking at me really funny, right? like a dog that hears a funny noise. And so he says, Hey man, are you okay? And when we’re not okay, what do we say? We lie, right? I’m fine. I’m good. Nothing to see.

[00:22:33] Move along. Right. Yeah. Immediately, immediately goes, Hey man, are you going to walk tonight? I’m And I’m like, absolutely not. I’m thinking, why do you think, why the hell do you think I’m hiding in the back, dude? No, I’m not walking tonight. And I said it with quite a bit of authority, right? Was it really a nice tone?

[00:22:51] If you will. And he’s like, Hey man, that’s cool. No problem. Listen, we don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do. And I went, wow. Okay. I like this guy. He’s going to get me out of here. No, he’s not. He’s tricking me because the next question he asked me total stranger. Don’t know who this guy is today without him.

[00:23:11] I’m not here, Jack. We’re not on this podcast right now. I would have never changed tens of thousands of people’s lives without this guy. But the question he asked me, he goes, wouldn’t you at least like to watch? And I’m thinking, well, okay, yeah, we’ll do that. Let’s go watch these people burn their feet off.

[00:23:26] It’ll be entertaining if nothing else. And he says, well, listen, man, you can’t see anything from way back here. You’re going to have to get in line. Oh, he is good. Oh, he was good. in his defense. He’s telling me the truth. Cause I can’t see anything. Yeah, I can hear it.

[00:23:41] I can see the big fire over there burning. I can hear them chanting and clapping. I can hear the drums going off. They’re already firewalking. They’re screaming and yelling with exhilaration and celebrating in the celebration. And after the firewalk, I mean, it is good. It is, it’s insane what’s going on.

[00:23:58] Right. So I just got in line, just kind of walking along, kind of cruising. And all of a sudden this guy comes up to me. okay. Different guy comes up, whispers in my ear and says, he knows when you’re ready. When he says go, you go and pew, this guy just disappeared into the night.

[00:24:13] Right. And I’m like, who’s what, who was that? What does that mean? He knows when you’re ready. So, you know, and then he was gone. And so now I’m kind of walking along and all of a sudden I get to a point, still can’t see in front of me, got a thousand people in front of me, but I can see at an angle and they’re doing it, man.

[00:24:31] Zach, they are walking on fire. Every race, every creed, every color. They’re doing it. And my brain is going, why? Why are you doing this? What’s wrong with you? Why would you do this metaphorically, help me out here. I don’t understand this at all. Yeah, yeah. But I’m mesmerized. I can’t take my eyes off. It’s kind of like a.

[00:24:48] You know, you drive by a car wreck and you say, Oh, I’m not going to look at it. I’m not going to look at it. And of course, we stare at it. Right. so now I’m mesmerized and I’m kind of walking along. I’m walking along and boom, next thing I know, guess where I am front of the line. I’m at the front of the line.

[00:25:04] And so now I’m staring. At that fire lane, right? It’s three feet wide, 18 feet long. The coals are glowing bright red. There’s no doubt that goals are I, the wheelbarrows there too. And you can feel the heat coming off. Right. And I’m losing it. My chest, my heart’s pumping. it’s going to jump out of my chest.

[00:25:21] Every any second. I’m scared to death, staring into the abyss, every fear, everything that ever happened in my life had shown up right there in that moment. there’s a trainer standing right there. All of a sudden, the trainer goes, Eyes up. Oh, that’s right. Keep your eyes up. Okay. Yeah, that’s right.

[00:25:40] I was in a room with Tony for 10 hours. What did he teach me to do? Keep my eyes up. Don’t stare at what I fear. Look to the celebration end. That’s where the reward is. And all of a sudden, the trainer goes, Squeeze your fist and say, Yes. And I went, Yes. And he went, Stronger. And I went, Yes. Well, he knew he could tell I’m not in a peak state and you knew it.

[00:26:00] So what’d he do? He gets in my face and screams at me. Stronger scream as loud as I could. And the trainer goes, go, go, go. I took off. Remember the guy he knows when you’re ready. When he says go, you go. I went. Well, they staged two people at the end of the fire line to stop you and catch you. Oh, I’d have walked all the way to Albuquerque.

[00:26:28] Yeah, exactly. I was, I was, I was moving. And here’s the first thing I learned about fire walking, by the way. When you take the first step, oh, you’ll take the second, third, fourth, and fifth. I promise. That’s right. And so now they’re like, stop, wipe your feet and celebrate. The two guys that catch you, right?

[00:26:43] And I’m walking on my feet, starting to celebrate. And all of a sudden it dawns on me. I’ve burnt myself really bad. And I look at my foot and it’s dirty, filthy dirty. But there’s no burns. Yeah. Oh, it’s my other foot. I look at it. Yeah. Same thing. Filthy, dirty, no burns. So I just walked on calls that were a thousand degrees and I have no clue how I did it.

[00:27:07] Yes. I did it right. I’m successful. Every day. You know, we all do something like that once in a while, right? We do something really cool. We don’t really know how we did it, but we did it and we take credit for it. Right. Like that’s right. Yeah. 

[00:27:19] Zach White: After the fact, I’m a firewalker deal. Hi, firework. I’ve been doing 

[00:27:25] video1777948207: this 

[00:27:25] Dave Albin: my whole life.

[00:27:25] What are you talking about? High five. And of course, when you’re down there in the celebration end, You’re with a couple thousand people who are all feeling the same thing. Exhilaration because your self confidence, your self belief in your self worth all raises together at the same time. you’re experiencing it collectively.

[00:27:45] Well, here’s where it got really interesting for me was the next day. This is a four day event. That was day one, the night, thereof, now we’re in day two. So we’re all standing in the foyer, getting ready to go into the venue that morning. And Zach, I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.

[00:28:02] It was the most beautiful thing I think I’ve ever witnessed in my entire life. I was sitting there watching people connect. I’m like. I’ve ever seen or witnessed people were hugging and I mean, they’re hugging, hugging, right? They’re, they’re laughing, they’re crying. They’re talking about their fears.

[00:28:17] They’re talking about the firewall. I mean, it was such a. beautiful thing, not only to witness, but to be part of right, because I’m saying what? Oh, hold on. Did we drink the Kool Aid last night? You better believe we did. Right? Well, later in the event, I met one of Tony’s trainer. Guy by the name of Ted Macy, super, super sweet guy, him and his wife, Mary.

[00:28:40] we’re in the environment for quite some time. So I’m just talking to Ted and I said, so you get to come do this on a regular basis, don’t you? He goes, yeah, every single one of them. And I go, man, that must be awesome to be in this environment, to be around on this intensity. Right. He says, Oh yeah, of course it is.

[00:28:54] He goes, as a matter of fact, you see all those people standing over there with the black shirts and the pink writing on the back. I’m like, yeah, he goes, dude, they’re volunteers. They’re just like you. And if you want to come do this, you want to come be part of it. Here’s all you got to do. Go home, call Robbins research, have them send you a volunteer crew application.

[00:29:11] Fill it out, send it back. Who knows? We’ll see what happens. I did in nine weeks after I sent that bad boy back, I got a letter in the mail and it said, Dave Alvin, congratulations. You’ve been selected a crew with the Anthony Robbins companies. Unreal. There I was. Now, when you fill out the form, you know, you’re giving them a lot of information, right?

[00:29:32] Yeah. They knew I was military. They knew I had a security background. So they immediately wanted to put me on the security detail, helping take care of Tony celebrities, which we could do a whole nother podcast on just that. and then because I lived on a farm, I knew how to split wood. I knew how to use a hatchet.

[00:29:48] I know what kindling is, right? So they put me on the fire building team, which is exactly where I wanted to go. so I crewed like, five or six times, maybe you got to pay your own way, right? You got to pay your airfare, your hotel, your food, all of it. Well, my wife is going, Whoa, time out.

[00:30:02] Hold on a second. You’re spending a couple thousand bucks every time you’re going, who the hell is this Tony Robbins guy? Cause at that point she doesn’t even know who he really is. I mean, she does, but she does it right. And so. I went into one of the events and they offered me a subcontracting position to be on the security team and to be the assistant fire captain.

[00:30:23] So now they’re going to pay my way. going to pay for my food, all my expenses, and they’re going to pay me a little salary. Well, they did another smart thing. They gave me a ticket and I gave it to my wife I took her and she went. And when she graduated on day four, we took a walk on the beach to anchor it in that night.

[00:30:41] And she goes, okay, I get it. I drank the Kool Aid. You want to run with this guy? Go. I love it. 

[00:30:48] Zach White: So amazing. I, so I had this experience in 2019 and it’s amazing. See what year was it? You walked on fire. The first time you said it was 95, 95. So 2019, here we are, 24 years later I can’t even imagine, The fact that that same experience was like as impactful then, as it was for me, like Tony just delivers every single time so I’m an engineer.

[00:31:17] You know, that Dave, when I’m walking out to the. To the fire that first night, shoes off every possible, you know, cockiness I can come up with is going on in my head as to why this isn’t real. Like the coals are not actually as hot as they say they are. There must be something else going on. There’s a trick here.

[00:31:41] Yeah. Like I’m, I’m figuring it out. Right. All of the. IQ that I’ve built my life around this ivory tower of intelligence that has served me so well. And I’m trying to figure this out and there’s no figuring it out, man. It’s exactly what you said. I remember that moment so vividly the person who’s, you know, they got their hand on their shoulder and they’re, they’re having you chant and they tell you when you’re, you’re ready to go.

[00:32:02] And you’re not joking when you take that first step, like it is just pure energy. Go walk. There’s, there’s no alternative. And it’s like the most powerful eight steps you ever took in your whole life, you know, it changed me. we wouldn’t be sitting here today, not only because of your firewalk, I wouldn’t be interviewing you today if it weren’t for my firewalk.

[00:32:23] There’s no question. That was a really important catalyst to the success of my coaching now and the business that I run. So I just, thanks for sharing that. And, and so now. Here you are subcontracting, you’re getting paid, your wife’s on board. You’re fully in and 19 plus years of time and service with firewalking and Tony Robbins, and how many tens or hundreds of thousands of people have you served in this 

[00:32:50] Dave Albin: way?

[00:32:51] I don’t know. Well, I, I’m, I’m very reluctant to say somewhere around a half a million, cause people are going to, that’s not true. There’s no way I just say tens of thousands. and let me give you an example. In 2003 I took over all of Tony’s firewalks, right?

[00:33:07] That’s when he said, Hey, I’ll be, I want you to become the captain. You’re going to be able to take over all the firewalks. I know you homeschool your kids. So we’ll take them on the road with us, bring your family. so in 2003, you know, the very first event that I did for Tony as his fire captain, my kids got to go to Sydney, Australia, right?

[00:33:23] So that’s how we started off 2005. We went to London, we set the world record. We firewalked 12, 300 people in one firewalk. Right? So when I say tens of thousands, I’m talking tens of thousands. No question. Yeah. Now, I say world record, I want to be perfectly clear about something. Guinness was not there, Zach.

[00:33:45] Um, but I say world record because it was. No one’s ever firewalked 12, 000 people on this planet. Unless you’re in another Tony Robbins seminar at 9, 000 or 10, 000, right? So we set the world record in, in 05, and then in 2014, I’m driving down the road and my phone rings and it’s Google. Hi Google, what can I do for you?

[00:34:05] Well, you’re the Dave Albin does the Firewalks Tony Robbins? Yes. What can I do for you? Well, if you’re not under any contractual obligation or non compete, we’d like to talk to you about hiring you. Well, Homeboy’s a free agent. What you got? And so they originally wanted to talk about a firewalk. They had 148 executives that were graduating from a nine month curriculum.

[00:34:27] Okay. They wanted to do the graduation, have lunch, and then anchor it in with the experience. And then after the experience, they could have some beer and wine. they wanted to do it in the middle of the day. And I said, I won’t do it in the middle of the day. Safety issue.

[00:34:38] Ain’t going to happen. either do it at night or we’re not doing the firewall. However, we could, I could do a glasswalk. They’re like a glasswalk. What, what’s that? I mean, like walking on broken glass. I go, yep. They’re like, ooh, tell us about that. So yeah, I ended up doing two glass walks for Google, but that’s when the light bulb went off.

[00:34:58] I had one of the one of the executives pulled me aside and they said, hey, Dave, look. You might want to think about starting your own company because I’ll tell you right now There’s a huge marketplace for corporate team building paradigm shift experiences at this level. People are tired of playing golf and scavenger hunts and playing blackjack and all that right because most CEOs and entrepreneurs and executives know that what doesn’t challenge you doesn’t change.

[00:35:26] It’s not going to happen That’s right. So I’ve seen it, right? You know, you’re right there. You know what it did to you. And I saw tens of thousands of people. I look at their face before they walk. And then I look at them when they’re done and I watch it for seconds and they’re completely transformed.

[00:35:43] I’ve again, I’ve seen it thousands and thousands of times. I’ll tell you where you can go see it. If you want to see it, go Google Oprah’s firewalk. Yeah, that’s a great one. 2010. L. A. Convention Center. Look at her what she’s going through before she walks. Fear, fear, fear. She’s losing it. She’s trying to find a reason not to do it.

[00:36:02] And then Tony basically says, Oprah, what’s the worst that gonna happen here? Burn your feet off and die. I’m not going to let you get hurt. Step up. And she did. And as soon as she finishes, look at what she does. Watch her celebrate. And then literally she walks and the cameras go with her within seconds of firewalking.

[00:36:21] She makes one of the biggest business decisions of her life. She created the next chapter. that’s why corporate America gets it, gets this, they get it. They hire me for one of three reasons. Things are really bad somewhere in the middle or things are really good and they want it up to the next level.

[00:36:38] And so I took it to the next level. Right. I brought in the right of passage. Tony really didn’t do that. I brought in the board break with the firewall. So now it’s a martial arts, right? every dojo in the, If you go from a white belt to a yellow belt, you got to break a board with your bare hands, right?

[00:36:55] So I brought that experience in and I have them write something on front of the board. They want to move towards something on back of the board. They need to move away from, I have them write anybody’s name on that board that they’re in conflict with. Which means if forgiveness or reconciliation is part of that relationship with that human being, it ends tonight.

[00:37:13] Stop, fix it, forgive them. And then to create the right of passage, I have them write anybody’s name on the board that they’ve lost. For So now it really takes on another dynamic. So we take them outside. We’ve got the board break stations. Boom. They break the board. We walk them in a circle. They firewalk.

[00:37:32] We do something immediately after they firewalk to anchor it in so they can go back to that place anytime they want. and then they, throw their boards in the fire. Then I do what’s called the Hoon heart hug. And I put everybody together and I have ’em hug the opposite way, right? Not the way we normally do.

[00:37:51] I want my heart on top of that individual’s heart, close your eyes. And I have ’em take three to four deep diaphragmic breaths. And by the time they get into that third breath, ’cause they’re holding their breath and they’re filling the body with oxygen, guess what happens to their hearts? D sync up. They calibrate, they sink.

[00:38:08] Mm. Yeah. And then I get everybody at the fire walk. I get all their hearts to sync up. And then, um, before they leave, we give them one of these, which is a, that’s the fire. That’s the coals 

[00:38:22] Zach White: inside. Oh, so cool. Yeah. I can beautiful. 

[00:38:26] Dave Albin: We give them that. So they take that home and, uh, and then, you know, I kiss him goodnight and send them back to their company and let them work on Monday morning.

[00:38:34] You see how that works out. 

[00:38:35] Zach White: So good. So Dave, before we have to end the conversation, I, I really want you to share If I’m not able to get to a firewalk tomorrow, but I want to take this whole idea of fear in my life that is blocking me from moving forward in whatever way, and every engineering leader I’ve ever coached or ever worked with has this, company is oasis of courage because I just believe so deeply that.

[00:39:07] If you don’t have the courage to step forward in the face of fear, then you’re never going to get where you want to go and reach the dreams you have in your career or your life or in anywhere. So, what are for you, if you’re just going to boil it down and say, this is, this is what I’ve discovered about how to punch fear in the face and how to take a step on fire without, the physical experience and the manifestation that you facilitate every, every day all over the world.

[00:39:33] But what would you say, what, what do we need to know about how to claim victory over fear in our lives? 

[00:39:41] Dave Albin: Well, I think everything we’ve ever wanted is sitting right over there on the other side of fear. Because the fears we don’t overcome become our limits, period. It’s just the way it’s going to work.

[00:39:50] what’s fear mean to you, right? Up until that firewalk, it was forget everything and run. After the firewalk, it was face everything and rise. So I believe the two most important times of any human’s life is the moment they’re born and the moment they figure out why. And one of my mentors said something super profound to me years ago, and I’ve never forgot it.

[00:40:08] And that is, he said, every human on this planet has two lives. And the second one starts when we realize we have only one. And so, you know, what I tell people all the time, stop negotiating with yourself. I don’t care if you’re an engineer or who you are, if you say you’re going to get up at five 30 in the morning, go to the gym to get your happy ass out of bed and do it.

[00:40:29] I get asked all the time, Dave, what’s your regimen? You’re 70 years old. Are you on any medications? Nope. I don’t do business with big pharma. Thank you. I’m not interested. So I take care of myself. So like, what’s the first thing I do when I get up in the morning, I have a regimen. And the first thing I do is make my bed.

[00:40:46] The second thing I do is I go out as soon as the sun comes up in the morning, those rays coming off the sun are very healthy. And so I want that on my upper body. I take my shirt off, I get it on my face, I get it on my chest, arms, shoulders. I do that for nine minutes. The other thing I do as I’m doing that, I do deep diaphragmic oxygenating of my cells.

[00:41:06] So I do deep diaphragmic breathing. In other words, I take 30 breaths. Really hard, right? It’s like, I mean, I’m into it, right? And you’re oxygenating, you’re pulling oxygen way down deep in your diaphragm. And then after I do 30 of those, I take a nice deep breath in and I hold it for as long as I can. then I do it again.

[00:41:26] I start over. So I’m doing three sets of 30 for a total of 90. Once I complete that, I go over into the other side of my house and I do earthing, grounding, you’re an engineer. So go look, right. 

[00:41:39] Zach White: So there’s some incredible research on grounding. We should do a whole series on that. That’s another 

[00:41:44] Dave Albin: day. So I just go put my feet.

[00:41:47] on the grass and I sit there for nine minutes and I do some other more meditative breathing. Then I come in, I read 10 pages in a good book. I do my sound therapy and then from there I go take my shower, my hot shower. Now I live in the Appalachian mountains. I have mountain spring water coming into my home.

[00:42:06] that water temperature is 56 degrees right now. So as soon as I do my hot shower, Here it comes. Turn the cold water on. Boom. Hits me right here in the face. Takes my breath away every single time. You can’t stop it. And then I do that for three minutes. So I do a cold shower for three minutes.

[00:42:26] And I focus on my breathing again, getting your breathing under control. And then I’m kind of a fasting kind of a guy. I typically don’t eat until 12 31 o’clock in the afternoon.

[00:42:38] Zach White: so we got here because you don’t negotiate with this regimen. It’s like, I’m committed. This is how I’m going to operate. How long have you had that at least some form of this going in your life? A 

[00:42:51] Dave Albin: few years now. Yeah. It’s amazing. And, and by the way, I don’t think, you know, Oh, well, sure, Dave, easy for you.

[00:42:56] It gets easier. No, it doesn’t. I’ll tell you right now, that cold shower does not get easier. Yeah. I try to come up with excuses all the time and I’m like, no, shut up. Get your ass in the water, man. No. And so I would do the same thing of that. Is that negotiation? Cause that’s going to come up more. Yep. And so you learn how to shut it down.

[00:43:15] Zach White: Yeah. Oh, so good. I live in Michigan, Dave, and in the summer, it’s not so bad. The groundwater temp is pretty decent. You know, it’s like, yeah, whatever. But in the winter time, when I crank that water to full cold, oh baby, you do every day. You know exactly what you’re getting into.

[00:43:32] You know how good it feels when you’re done, you know, all the benefits about why it is important to do. And there’s always some moment of negotiation or that, that mental, like, I don’t want to do 

[00:43:43] Dave Albin: this. Like I tried it this morning. I’ve got some friends who came from Nashville, dear friends of mine, they’re sisters, 

[00:43:49] I’m like, Oh, you don’t really need it this morning. You know, they’re here, you know, you need to go help make them breakfast. No, it’s three minutes, man. Stop. Do it. 

[00:43:59] Zach White: Okay. Dave, if someone knows they need to either, reach out to your organization and create one of these experiences for their teams, for their executives, or they just, you know, for themselves, I got to get around the people who are transforming paradigms this way.

[00:44:18] What’s the best place for people to go to connect with you, your work, firewalk adventures, tell us where to go. Yeah. 

[00:44:24] Dave Albin: I’d like to plug one thing one minute a couple of months ago I did a podcast and they asked me if I’d ever done a firewalk for veterans and I said you mean specifically And I said they said yeah, and I go no why what do you got going on?

[00:44:36] So we entered into talks and it during that talk the light bulb went off So I’m kind of moving away from corporate America. I have four different groups of people that I want to spend the rest of my time doing what I do for these four groups. Number one is veterans, 22 a day are taking their lives.

[00:44:53] Well, that’s not true. That’s the numbers that float around out there. That’s only if they leave a note and half of them don’t. So the number’s over 40 and I’m a vet. My dad was a vet. I’m like. You can’t Dave, look at my website. What’s it say? It says, you know, stop looking for heroes and be one. So I have to live up to that, my own creed.

[00:45:12] So right now we’re creating four categories. We’re doing firewalks to help save people’s lives. Number one, veterans. Number two, first responders. Number three, single moms. I was born to a single mom. You just heard my story. And number four, kids that have been bullied. So you’ve got a couple of different options with me.

[00:45:29] Number one. By the way, we scheduled our first one for the vets. It’s going to be April 13th in Modesto, California. We got 200 vets coming. And so I’ve already invited some CEOs of some pretty big companies. So you have options. You can come hire us. We’ll come put on a firewalk for you and your company, you can go through our foundation and hire operation do no harm.

[00:45:51] And we’ll come put on a firewalk for one of those categories. Maybe it’s vets or first responders, whatever. They can, they can sponsor that and put their brand out in front of all that. And then I also have the Dave Albin Firewalk Academy. Which means once a year at October, you can send somebody to us or come yourself, and I’m going to train you how to do all this stuff so that you can go back in your company or your community or whatever, and facilitate these life changing experiences.

[00:46:20] So to find all that, just go to firewalkadventures.com. That’s all one word, firewalkadventures with an S. Dot com. 

[00:46:31] Zach White: Amazing. That will be in the show notes. Happy engineer. Please go check it out. And Dave, thank you for your heart, your compassion, your generosity. I am so inspired by these four groups. I connect with, multiple of them.

[00:46:45] my stepdad’s retired Navy and deep. Heart for veterans. I’ve had a single mom growing up and my dad disappeared from my life when I was 13 and never saw him and, um, ah, just awesome. 

[00:46:57] Dave. You know this as well as anybody I’ve ever had on the show, questions lead, answers follow. And if we want better answers, we need to ask better questions. Yes, we do. So we always wrap this show with getting curious about what would be the question that you would lead the happy engineer with coming out of this 

[00:47:18] Dave Albin: conversation.

[00:47:19] Why don’t people get what they want in life? There’s a real, there’s a real specific answer to that. There’s a story you tell yourself of why or why you can’t have it. a lot of times people say, I don’t have the time, which is one of the biggest lies we ever tell ourselves. I don’t have the time. I don’t have the money.

[00:47:33] I don’t have the education. I don’t have the background, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Not true. You know, and I’ll leave you with this. So when I do my seminars, I put a picture of a guy behind me and he’s standing somewhere that most people are going to guess where he’s standing. And he’s my buddy, Eric Weinmeier.

[00:47:47] So I’ll talk for 20 minutes and then I’ll open it up. I’ll say, Hey, by the way, who here could tell me where my buddy Eric is standing? And somebody almost gets it right every time. Mount Everest. That’s correct. let me tell you something about Eric. Yeah, he’s standing at the top of Mount Everest, but I want you to know he’s climbed the seven highest mountains on seven continents.

[00:48:04] Okay. He put him on a mountain bike. He can tear it up, put him in a kayak. He can probably negotiate any river on earth. But here’s something I want you to know about Eric. He’s blind. So I don’t want to hear it. You tell yourself something that you can’t know. If a blind man can climb the seven highest mountains on earth, I don’t want to hear it.

[00:48:26] step by 

[00:48:27] Zach White: You want to change your life? Change your story. 

[00:48:30] Come on, Dave. What a blessing. Thank you so much for your generosity and your time today, man. It’s been awesome.

[00:48:36] Dave Albin: Let’s do it again sometime.