The Ripple Effect of Big Dreams with Charlie Rocket | Ep 21

Charlie: 00:00:00

If we think something's hard, we will try to confirm our belief system and we will look for ways for it to be hard. If we think something's going to be easy, we're actually going to look for ways. It's going to be easy. But what we believe is what we will see.

Arjun: 00:00:21

I had heard of Charlie Rocket and his worldly contributions in the way of philanthropy and helping out children, children and families that were affected by cancer or terminal illness. But also because I saw him on a Nike commercial that aired during the super bowl many years ago.

I came to learn of his own battle with a brain tumor and how he overcame that and losing weight, from being 300 pounds, very overweight and unhealthy, to turning his life around and ultimately running a marathon. I heard Charlie speak at an event and was moved to tears, as was everyone else in the audience.

To be fair about the impact that he was having and how he continues to serve children.

I told him when he came off stage that I thought he was God's grace for the work that he's actually doing and had the privilege of sitting down with him to learn more about why Charlie continues to serve in this way, why it was his calling. It was a really emotional conversation. I know you'll get a lot out.

Charlie: 00:01:11

Of it, so please enjoy the show, Charlie. Thank you, brother. I know you just got off stage. You had the whole crowd in tears, myself included. That's two days in a row you've done it.

It was bad, but I needed. It was a good cry. I appreciate you giving us your time. The concept of dreaming crazy and big, I loved hearing you talk about it today.

Talk to me a little bit about that and why it is so important. Because I think people are too conservative with their dreams anymore, if they even have dreaming.

Charlie: 00:01:47

Crazy is so important, not just for yourself, but it is really a way to give back. Because when you have a crazy dream that's inside of you, you'll tell people and they won't believe it. Their limitations will.

They'll bring that upon you because they don't believe their dreams are possible.

But when somebody dreams so big and so crazy and they actually believe that it's going to come true, and when it happens, it has a ripple effect on this world, has a ripple effect on your friends. And their lives change because they got to witness somebody say they were going to do something where nobody believed.

And once they become it now, everybody around them starts changing and generations are changed and families are changed, all because of one person who did the thing that nobody believed they could do. So it is in a very important and a massive way of changing lives. And when somebody's dream comes true, that person wants to lift up other people.

And so the greatest thing you could do is for your dream to come true, as crazy as it might be. And the crazy dreams are the ones you should actually go after, because the crazy dreams are the ones you could see when you close your eyes.

It's the thing that makes your heart sing. And it might not make any sense to your mind, but your heart knows.

And if we can just get our minds to just say yes and be a little crazy, like how the heart is. And when they get in coherence, our actions show up for the crazy dream, and the universe starts conspiring for it.

Charlie: 00:03:44

So a big part of lfg energy is doing things that are audacious, that are maybe thought of as impossible. Crazy people laugh at you, they look at you funny, or they can turn nuts.

Was there a point in your youth or like an actual moment that you remember specifically when this happened for you? And there was this intersection of the dream itself and then you realizing that, I've got something.

Charlie: 00:04:08

It actually started with burying a dream. When I was young, I wanted to be an athlete, but I was always overweight.

So I buried the dream, and I wanted to come up with something more realistic that I could do, and that was, I'm going to be a businessman. As so many of us, we buried the original dream, we go make money.

But I still applied my dreaming big to that, and I became very successful in the music industry. For anybody listening, I was able to work my way up to winning Grammys. I managed some of the biggest artists in hip hop.

I own one of the biggest management companies in hip hop. At a very young age, I was. I was 20 years old, and I was managing some of the biggest stars. And the bigger my business got, the bigger I got.

I became morbidly obese. I was 300 pounds, and at the height of my career, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. And I realized that I buried my dream.

And it got me here to where I was so sick and I was so overweight and facing death, you wonder if that's it. And then I asked myself a simple question. I was like, what was my story? If I were to die, what would my story be?

It would be, you know, kid buries his dream, goes to make a lot of money, does some cool things, but dies. I was like, that story sucks.

I was like, well, what's a good Story good story would be kid buries his dream, goes and makes a lot of money, gets diagnosed with a brain tumor, leaves the business, reunites with his childhood dream, becomes an athlete, becomes a big athlete, becomes an athlete. That's in the biggest Nike commercials of all time with LeBron James and Serena Williams. And then he helps other people. I.

I said, that's a good story.

Charlie: 00:06:06

And you thought of this.

Charlie: 00:06:07

Yeah.

Charlie: 00:06:08

In that moment, was there some time that went by or was in that moment?

Charlie: 00:06:11

Well, there was a phase of darkness where I would be called to nature a lot. Just lost, broken, scared. And every time I would go in nature, I would have my notebook with me, and I'd be trying to figure it out.

And then I heard a voice I called a God. Like, you're not going to figure this one out. Go on a journey. And it was clear as day.

And that's when I left the music industry and it all started coming together. And I was like, I'm going to be an athlete. I don't know how I'm going to make money. Doesn't make sense to anybody.

Just went from winning Grammys to now. I was like, I'm going on a jog. Like, it's a big contrast. But I saw it. I saw when I closed my eyes what my story was going to be.

And I kept seeing this commercial with LeBron James and Serena Williams. It was a Nike commercial and I was in it. And I would manifest.

And I can't tell a really long story, but I was crazy enough to show up and I wanted to make a fan made Nike commercial because I believed Nike was the universe conspired for me. This guy walked in the front door. He was hanging out with a roommate of mine. He had a camera.

And I was literally writing in my notebook earlier that day that I was going to find somebody who can help me with this. And we made a fan made nike commercial for $600. We put it out. Nike saw it. Nike called me. Exactly how I saw the vision. I became a Nike athlete.

I got to be in the biggest Nike commercial of all time. It had Colin Kaepernick, LeBron James and Serena Williams and myself in it. We got to win an Emmy.

So just a year and a half before I had won a Grammy, I left the music industry and now I won an Emmy. But I won an Emmy as an athlete, not as a music producer or manager.

Arjun: 00:08:03

So, Charlie, when you actually diagnosis real quick, when you got it and obviously you have vision and the alignment in this direction, you said, I'm Going here. I know. What were the odds against you at that time, health wise? Like from the doctor.

Charlie: 00:08:20

So the tumor was very invasive. It was wrapped around my eye, this eye. It was hard for me to open. It was wrapped around the artery that went into my brain.

So if I walked up a flight of steps, it would be this pounding. I mean, it would be so bad. It was in my brain for so long and it was sitting on top of my spine.

So the tumor that it started corroding the top of my spine. I was scared. I called my mom and told her to come out to California. She didn't know why. I didn't tell her what was going on.

I just said, I need you to come. And she, you know, moms just know stuff. And I was so, just like broken. I was just so scared.

And every bad thing that had ever happened in my life always ended up being good. And so I disarmed it. I disarmed how scary it was. I always go through my, like, fear like this human. We're human. But staying there is not that fun.

But once you find the gratitude, you can disarm it. And now it can become a gift. And I allowed having a brain tumor to be something I'm thanking. Thank you.

This is going to be the thing that helps me get my dream. Would I have ever left the music industry? No. Thank you. Would it help me experience my dream of being a Nike athlete? Maybe. Thank you.

So when I made the commercial, the fan made commercial and it was very powerful, very moving. It's like, thank you.

Arjun: 00:10:00

Is this hitting home with you guys? Let me know if this type of a strategy is something you've already incorporated or you now feel like you're going to incorporate.

And how are you going to do it? Drop me a comment on that here in the comment section.

Charlie: 00:10:13

It's for me, not against me. It was put there to give me redirection because I took the wrong direction as a kid. And so I got to experience my dream.

I got to watch myself on super bowl commercial, got to win an Emmy, got to do all that. I biked across America. I did an ironman. I did five marathons. I lost £130. My dream came true. And what else is there to do?

e done ever since. We've made: 1500

And that's what I Wake up and do every day. And I am now even again, reigniting my dream as an athlete. I'm training for another Ironman and I'm going to do it.

I'm going to drop about 40 more pounds. I'm going to be an athlete While I help people to where I have my dream, other people have theirs. And, man, it's just time.

I told myself about three weeks ago, I had the LFG conversation with myself and I was like, all right, let's take this to another level. Like, we can make more impact.

Charlie: 00:11:31

I love it. The journey that you've been on and being in such service to everyone. Talk to me about the level of fulfillment.

I know it might be obvious to some people, but you actually feel more continues to drag in doing this because you're. I mean, I'll say it very humbly that you're doing God's work here. You know, submission in you and you're doing it.

And maybe they don't have to do it at your level, but we all should be willing. You're doing it. Talk to me about what keeps fueling you and why you continue on.

Charlie: 00:12:02

Honestly, it's really fun being in a abundant place in life. And by abundant, it's kind of like a chicken or egg thing. You don't have to have a whole bunch of money to be abundant.

It kind of starts with like a frequency shift. It's kind of like a radio station. It's like you could be on a station and if it's not tuned right, all you get is static.

But you flip it one little notch and that alignment, that's what you're looking for, abundance. It starts here. We're going to tune ourselves to abundance. So how do you tune to abundance? One of the ways is giving without fear.

It's like, go help somebody. Like, leave a tip for the person behind you. Or like, just go a little bit extra, like, give. And that opens up so much abundance.

They call it like the golden rule. Like, you give, it comes back. But, like, it's very fun being abundant.

It makes life very interesting because so much magic flows into your life when you're abundant. So it being fun keeps me going. The second thing is once you kind of see the impact or you know what's going on out there in the world.

Like, for example, I meet a kid and kid has cancer, family's falling apart, not paying the bill, family can't pay the bills.

And it's like once you know, you have the ability to make a difference, it's very Hard to go back to the way life was when you only cared about yourself. It's not that exciting, only caring about yourself. Because sometimes it's not even giving the kid money or the family.

Sometimes it's just trying is all you gotta do. For example, this little girl named Bri. Bri, she makes these bracelets. And most people think about philanthropy as, like, only giving money.

And money is so important because it solves problems for people who really need help with this little girl named Bribri. She has stage four cancer. She has a feeding tube. She can't eat food. And she's selling these bracelets. And we didn't give her money.

I bought some bracelets, but we tried. We tried to help her build a business. So we built our website, we made some videos, we made some graphics, we made some phone calls.

We tried to put our videos out to the world. And just trying. She was able to sell $100,000 in bracelets in just a couple weeks.

And then we bring her to a conference, and then she'll sell $3,000 worth of bracelets to the people at the conference. We're just trying. That's it. Trying creates so much good energy, even if you don't have money.

Charlie: 00:14:56

It's an amazing effect. Story that you shared about her.

And I ask you, of all the: 1500

Is there a particular story or a human that you interacted with the other 50 owner that left maybe a little bit more of a profound impact on you.

Charlie: 00:15:23

Yeah.

Charlie: 00:15:24

Or just really pierced you.

Charlie: 00:15:26

Vincent Triple V. Let me tell you about Vincent. So one of our big donors told me about this young lady in Orlando who was drugged on a date and is now a vegetable.

And she's bathed in the backyard of her house with a water hose because her big wheelchair, like, it's like she's a vegetable. So it's a massive, like, almost a bed wheelchair. Like, it doesn't fit in the bathroom.

They live in a very small house and not in a place to afford a renovation which costs. You know how much renovations cost. So I show up to the house.

I'm just meeting the family, seeing what the story is, doing my due diligence, just making sure everything's real. That's what we do as a foundation. We show up, we get to know the family before. Even before we film anything.

And I'm meeting this family And I meet the mother of the daughter, and I'm like, wow, she's got to be so strong. She's taking care of this girl. Like, it's just unbelievable what she's been through, Everybody, the whole family's been through.

And then out of this room comes out this young man, and he has down syndrome. And I said, who is this? He said, I'm Triple V. I said, what do you mean you're Triple V?

He said, I'm going to be a pro wrestler so I can take care of my sister. I was like, okay, I see why I'm here. They need a house remodeled, and that costs a lot of money. So we put out a video.

We raised $120,000 in two days, got the house remodeled. The job doesn't stop there, because Vincent has a dream. Janie has a dream. She wants to be able to just take a shower inside. Vincent has a dream.

He wants to be a pro wrestler. So my mind goes to big dream mode. Everything's possible. Why can't a young man with down syndrome be a pro wrestler? He's a savant of wrestling.

ll me who won WrestleMania in: 1993

It's like a dream. Like, that's a dream in itself.

Come to find out, he knew how to do the wrestling move so perfect that he wouldn't even injure the pro wrestler, but it was the real move to the T. I asked his mom, I said, how does he know how to do this? He says he's been practicing since he was 5. He literally loves it.

That's when my mind went big. I said, we're going to turn him into a pro wrestler. And so I said, we got three weeks. We booked out an arena in Orlando.

I developed an event called Dream Mania, where we're going to give Vincent and other kids with down syndrome the chance to be the stars, and they're going to wrestle against pro WWE wrestlers.

And we sold out the arena, and Vincent trained for weeks, and we got the attention of WWE and they called us, and we got the attention of one of the biggest wrestling management companies in the world, and they signed him as a wrestler.

Then he started doing professional wrestling shows all over the country because it was his dream to say, I'm going to be a pro wrestler so I can take care of my sister. That one had A big effect on me.

Charlie: 00:19:16

Did you keep in touch with him?

Charlie: 00:19:17

Oh yeah, yeah. Oh, they're great. House is beautiful. New bathroom, new kitchen, new bedroom. Janie is taking baths.

See the thing with Janie, she's a vegetable, but her mind works. Her body doesn't work, she can't speak, but her mind is perfect. So she's just trapped inside of her body. So she knows how frustrating.

But now she has her own bedroom, she has her own spa, like bathroom, everything. And the mom went on a vacation, they got a little money in the bank. Everything is perfect. So that one meant a lot to me. That was a special one.

Charlie: 00:19:52

Thank you for sharing it with us. With all the everything you battled, all the adversity, everything you come back from beating a brains.

Is there anything asking you from a place of vulnerability that scares you in this day and age? Are you afraid enough and you know anything is possible or do you still get scared from time to time or ever feel that something is too daunting?

Charlie: 00:20:12

I do get scared. Like I said, I have my phases. It always starts with fear. And then I don't like staying there.

So it's not so much that I'm scared because I will always be scared of stuff. What I would recommend to anybody is everything is possible and there's enough proof out there. So like consume that.

Like there's some awesome podcasts right where people tell their stories. Just consume it.

And the more that you have proof, it's like you ever been on a water slide at like a water park, like your heart's racing and it's like, I don't know how I'm going to do this. It's like the biggest drop ever. But then if you just scale back and think about it, be like, hold on, like 100,000 people have gone down this thing.

It's guaranteed I'll be just fine. It's actually, it's like, okay, there's no reason to be scared. But it's also the same thing with millions of people that became a millionaire.

There's millions of people that figured this out. It must be easy. It must be for that many people to have become successful.

I drive around LA and from like Malibu to Orange county, there's like so many million dollar houses. I'm like, if all these people got a million dollar house, it must be easy. Easy, it's gotta be. There's not a couple people have it.

There's like hundreds of thousands of people who figured it out just in this city. It's gotta be an easy thing. So I try to tune to the easy frequency and just believe everything's gonna be easy.

Because if we think something's hard, we will try to confirm our belief system and we will look for ways for it to be hard. If we think something's gonna be easy, we're actually going to look for ways. It's going to be easy. But what we believe is what we will see.

What we see is what we'll believe. But I believe I can have whatever I want. I believe I can do whatever I want. I believe Vincent can be a pro wrestler in three weeks.

So guess what happens? Because I believe so just really be a little bit delusional and it disarms the fear and just. Lfg.

Charlie: 00:22:52

Yeah. Surrender to it. There.

Charlie: 00:22:53

Yeah.

Charlie: 00:22:54

Is there anything that you do now or that you're doing in your day to day that you're applying a lot of these strategies and things that helped you overcome the brain tumor?

Charlie: 00:23:06

Yeah.

Charlie: 00:23:06

Become the athlete.

Charlie: 00:23:07

Yeah.

Charlie: 00:23:07

Is there something you're doing now or.

Charlie: 00:23:09

Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be challenged.

Charlie: 00:23:10

But I'm. I know you got the Ironman.

Charlie: 00:23:12

Yeah, I'm doing it again.

So when I started my foundation, I put myself on the back burner to help the kids, and I started gaining weight, and I gained about 60, almost 70 pounds back where my dream was slipping away again. So I'm reapplying everything I know to get my dream back again. And I'm like, oh, I'm going to be an athlete. I'm going to do an Ironman.

So this morning, Renee wanted me here for the opening and I left. What did I do when I left? I went and trained. Then I came back and did my speech. But it's because I tell people what I'm gonna do.

So it creates this web that I'm trapped in, which is good.

Charlie: 00:23:58

Can't negotiate now.

Charlie: 00:23:59

No. I told everybody I'm doing Ironman, but I don't tell them once. I tell everybody all day, every day. I have to do it. How could I back out?

I look like a fool. Yeah. So it's very important to speak. It's very important to speak your dreams. It's very important to speak everything you're going to do.

Because we want to be men or women of our words.

Charlie: 00:24:24

So, Charlie, as we kind of bring this home, my friend, if there is. There's no right or wrong answer to this, what would you say if there was either a phrase or maybe it's a word or something that comes to mind? Mind.

If you had described what lfg Energy is to Charlie. To Charlie. Given his life experiences and all that he's been through and battled and all the people, what does LFG energy mean to you?

Charlie: 00:24:48

The word that comes to me is two words. It's guaranteed. For example, when I think about the lfg, it's like a jump.

It's like when you're in that frequency of let's go, it's a jump, you're making a jump. And when I think about somebody who jumps, their success is 100% guaranteed. It's not a what if.

If you were to tell me right now that your dream was to be a rapper and you told me, like, how serious you were and Nev knows this, my manager knows this. I said, it's guaranteed. He's gonna make it. Guaranteed.

I've seen the craziest stories in the world of people who were not supposed to have it and they did it. And it could be the craziest thing. Like with me, it was guaranteed I was going to be a Nike athlete. It was guaranteed. There wasn't even a chance.

It wasn't gonna happen. Why? Because that dream, it was already done. Tom just hadn't caught up yet. It's guaranteed. Take the jump. Let's fucking go. It's already done.

Tom hasn't caught up yet. We just gotta go do what we gotta do and then I'll catch up. But it's guaranteed. Let's fucking go. Just guaranteed.

Charlie: 00:26:16

Charlie, I can't thank you enough for one spending time with us, brother. But I heard this expression a long time ago. It was bestowed upon. It came from a shaman.

It was bestowed upon somebody I knew well, who was a huge service to this world. And I haven't met anybody since that time three years ago. Until I met you just yesterday. And he referred to that person as God's grace.

You are my friend, my humble opinion. God's grace with everything you do, everything you touch, the impact you have, what you're doing in this world.

If people did a fraction of what you do, this world looks transformatively different. Categorically different. So I just want to tell you thank you, man. It's an honor and privilege for me to know you now call you a friend.

I appreciate you sharing time with this audience and your story, your mission. We're all rooting for you in that. Ironman. We talking to you again. We'll bring you back. We want.

Charlie: 00:27:08

Can't wait.

Charlie: 00:27:09

You achieved an amazing result that wasn't second to last.

Arjun: 00:27:14

It's going to be much better.

Charlie: 00:27:16

Much better. I'm saying. I'm putting in.

Charlie: 00:27:19

Can't wait.

Charlie: 00:27:19

You're going to do it?

Charlie: 00:27:20

That's right.

Charlie: 00:27:20

But thank you, Charlie. God bless you, brother.

Charlie: 00:27:22

Thank you, brother. Appreciate you, bro.