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Charge Forward Podcast
The Charge Forward Podcast: Dedicated to those who choose to Charge Forward into the Storm when hit with challenges. This is what makes them different and has lead to their success. When in doubt.... Charge Forward!
Charge Forward Podcast
Marriage, Motors & Millions of Views: The Story Behind ‘Driving With Melissa’ (Part 2)
The Real Drive: Power Couple Secrets to Wealth, Love & Supercars -
James and Melissa Smith didn’t build their dream life overnight—and they didn’t inherit it either. In this powerful Part 2 episode, the couple behind Driving with Melissa breaks down the real story of how patience, purpose, and smart decisions created both financial freedom and a vibrant community around cars, business, and family.
💡 From $5/hour jobs to business ownership
🏡 Their simple wealth strategy: Buy. Pay Down. Level Up.
🔥 How American Heating & Cooling became a Nashville powerhouse
🚗 Why their Audi R8 is fully funded by YouTube views
🎯 Building a car community that feeds their soul—and their business
💪 Health, wellness & longevity tips that keep them in the driver’s seat of life
They’ve built more than a car collection—they’ve built legacy through loyalty, proving that treating people right and playing the long game pays off.
🎥 Subscribe and follow “Driving with Melissa” to keep up with their fast (but intentional) journey. This episode is packed with insights you can apply to your business, health, and life.
📲 Watch or listen now on YouTube and all major podcast platforms!
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So we bought the R8 with the social media income from driving with Melissa we bought a house. Paid on it for 10 years, paid most of it off. Bought the bigger house, lived in it for 10 years, paid most of it off. Bought the next one, lived in it for 10 years, paid most of it off.
Speaker 3:And so this is the fourth house in 35 years, or so the fourth house in 35 years or so, and so you know is do you do service, or I mean paint the picture of what, what American heating and cooling, Okay, yeah, we're primarily a residential new construction company, mostly single family homes.
Speaker 1:I think we did around 3000 houses last year. Uh and it's, uh, it's an ever-changing, malleable business. Uh, you, you really have to be on top of the the federal and codes, uh requirements, not just for your county, but we do a 50 mile radius and so there's 15 municipalities that all do it differently, ironically, and just being able to do. You know, we have 27 installation trucks and 20 service trucks. And no, my main thing is one the customers are definitely our priority. If you don't take care of the customers, then then you don't have a business. That's right. But the people are right there Also.
Speaker 1:It, uh, it. We have so many long-term and we have people that have been there 35 to 40 years. Wow, uh and it's just, and everybody, my whole management staff and the sales staff have all brought and brought up um, mostly through our organization. Just like I did, I started in the warehouse and worked 10 different jobs before we bought the company with my business partner. Uh and it's just, uh, it's, it's that very homegrown, you know scenario, uh, but we just, uh, we put the customers and the people first and it would just really make an effort to stay in front of the technical side of it, which I think a lot of people struggle with, but it's a very good organization. I'm a spreadsheet guy. My business partner is the consummate sales guy. Believe it or not, I am not the sales guy. I love numbers and I love people you know, the internal organization side of it.
Speaker 1:I don't shut up either.
Speaker 3:No, it's all right. You like the story that the data tells you yes, no.
Speaker 1:I'm a very objective person when it comes down to that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I get that because you know for years. So the company that I grew here in Nashville we went from six million to a little over a hundred million and the majority of that was dialing in the data, because we had a lot of data but we hadn't done anything with it and my competitors weren't doing anything with it either. And then we started advertising on Facebook and the first 300,000 that I spent on Facebook was brutal. I mean, it was just like signing up to get punched in the face every day. And then, once we figured out how to connect the dots, I treated it like a cash machine. I knew that if I put a dollar in, I could get a dollar and 90 back. So how much money do I want to make? And you know, once you, once you get that going, once you get your data dialed in, it allows you to make decisions faster than your competitors, right? So I'm sure you've experienced that.
Speaker 1:We actually do little to no advertising.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm just saying getting ahead of the market or, when the market shifts, using the data that you have at your disposal in order to make the right decisions.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely, we've been very good about not just watching the news but listening to the industry and talking to people on a regular basis, and we've been very good about being ahead of the curve for, especially when 2021, 22, with supply chain issues and things like that, we're large enough, we have a large enough facility in the capital that we could. You know, I had POs out 30, uh, 12 months for, you know, material that was gone locally. Sure, you know, I like a flex ducting, uh, a regular company might go, might use a truck load in a year. I use it one every two days, you know, and so we were. I had a truck coming in every two days. I had seven, uh seven trucks of stuff stacked up in the yard, you know.
Speaker 1:But it's just a matter of uh, we, you can't miss in new construction, you can't miss a day. You miss a day, you blow the month, uh, and then I've got, we have uh, many, many miles to feed, and that's a very important to me to make sure those people have a job to come into and stay busy, and it's our responsibility to make sure that happens. And so, uh, you hear me when you've sat around me. You know I don't, I'm not shy, that's right. I uh, I've said, I've uh, not just in our car community, but just people we've met at Perry's in the last month and a half. Um, I, I, I get a lot of business cause I don't mind talking about. I will find something. If it's cars, it's watches or whatever, I'll find a common link and I'll go talk to somebody, kind of like Giannis was saying in your interview with him the other day, cause he's in there with us.
Speaker 1:Uh, it's all about the uh, the community. You know, I want to be the heat and air guy for the car community and I use all those other guys that are sitting in. There are all people that do work with me also. And cause I think that, cause we're all accountable, cause we, we all want to go to lunch next, and that's right.
Speaker 3:That's right. I don't want to go in there and have to duck anybody. Yeah, you don't want, you don't want to have. I've always liked the idea that if I ran into somebody that I did business with, even if it was one deal that I would be excited to see them on the street, you know, to shake their hand, to see how they're doing whatever. Um, and I do think that is very, very much the culture of the people that show up on Fridays. You know Giannis does business with everybody over there. In fact, the first time I met Giannis was the day I was picking my wife's car up at Genesis there in cool Springs and just sit next to each other. I didn't know him from Adam and he told me what he did and I just crossed my mind.
Speaker 1:Did he say Russian bodyguard?
Speaker 3:We had that conversation pretty early on. But I go to pick up the car and I said to the sales guy I said you know, I think I'm going to give Giannis a call and see if he can do it, and he goes. That's where I send everything he goes. If you call him right now, he can probably have it done before we get the paperwork done. So text Giannis he's like yes, send it right now. Sure enough, which I was planning on having my wife come the next day in order so she could pick it up from the dealership and do all the stuff. And they absolutely just they knocked it out. The car was back before I left. So great, we'll come pick it up in the morning.
Speaker 1:So he's very personable and he's very uh, um, he's very. If they do an outstanding job and if there's an issue, he just takes care of it, and I could sell PPF on street corners. I literally think it's the world's best product for cars and they do a great job. Putting that on all, all eight of our cars are PPF. I just a huge believer in keeping them the way they're supposed to look, uh, but yeah, I just kind of like hanging around him anyways, you know, whether we're doing business or not at the time, he's just a uh, he's a like a force of nature.
Speaker 3:He really is Um, and hats off to him. I mean anybody that's flying anytime soon, uh, and you can actually have Giannis' team detail your car through the valet at B&A Airport and they are crushing it To give it a perspective. They're doing three times the cars that the previous company was doing out there and the reviews are shooting through the roof. So, giannis, way to go. Corsair, you guys do fantastic work, but he's got an infectious personality, Great to be around, and there's a lot of people in that industry that say they do PPF and they do it well enough for you to need to go have it redone Right, whereas Corsair does a great job.
Speaker 1:The driving with Melissa too, just to put it into perspective. So we bought the R8 with the social media income from driving with Melissa. I love that. I like to have that delineation there. We use the social media to support the car habit to a certain extent, and the car habit supports the social media.
Speaker 1:So I have my business over here and then we have the social media stuff and the car stuff over here, and so it's, that's that's it. It kind of ties together, yeah, you know. So that's, that's where the people so where are the cars come from? Well, that's where a lot of it comes from, you know, the trips or whatever things like that, that that comes from the social media.
Speaker 3:But there again, that is part of the tax advantage of having that go together like that, right, yeah, it just makes sense Consult your professional. Exactly, exactly, hit up your local CPA. My favorite one is Valerie Kemp. So, valerie, somebody with some cars may give you a call.
Speaker 1:I saw I watched that one.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, she's fantastic. Oh yeah, she's fantastic. But along the way you know, you guys come to Nashville after the lengthy two week engagement and you start out with jobs that are paying five dollars an hour. Somebody out there is thinking I can never have this type of life, I can never have these cars. They had to have had a leg up. What do you tell somebody?
Speaker 2:that says something like that you just have to work for it. I mean, we did not get any help from our parents. I mean, my dad gave us the sofa.
Speaker 2:You know, His parents when he was in Desert Storm I mean, there were no cell phones or Zoom meetings or you know when he was in Iraq and traveling overseas. That was the hardest thing we went through and a phone call from there to here could be outrageously expensive. Sure, and his mother had an AT&T card for long distance calls. Back when you had long distance calls and had to pay for it, and financially, that was the one time they they helped us.
Speaker 3:Yeah she.
Speaker 2:she gave him the card and said when you get a minute, call your wife and she will call me because you need to talk to your wife.
Speaker 3:What a huge blessing that was.
Speaker 2:I'm sure she has always been a blessing.
Speaker 1:Just to clarify I had to wake up at 1 o'clock in the morning and walk three miles across the desert to wait in line for an hour to get to make a 15-minute call, yeah, and if you didn't make the connection you walked back. Yeah, and so we kind of timed it. Me and a couple other guys would walk. There was a phone tent but it was three miles away and we would walk across the desert to the phone tent and they were just running companies through there 24 hours a day and if you didn't get a connection then you walked back and I'd get home, I'd get back to the tent just in time to hit morning formation, yeah. So I didn't call that much because I was walking too much, no, but they were expensive phone calls.
Speaker 2:Yeah sure. And that was a blessing that we had that, because every house we bought over the years we bought as much as we could afford to buy and still live, and of course you couldn't live on $5 an hour today.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:It's not 1988 anymore.
Speaker 3:But I mean $5 an hour.
Speaker 2:You've got two car payments, you're paying your insurance and you buy a house that costs $70,000 that you're paying 8% interest on. You know interest rates today. I don't know what mortgage rates are 7%, 6%, whatever they are but the 3% and 2% were not the normal um that we've had over the last few years. So you just, there were no coffee shops with $9 cups of coffee. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Um, we went out to eat once a week maybe to the Mexican restaurant Cause that we could afford that you know, and we cooked at home, and we we entertained ourselves and had neighbors that you know, and we cooked at home and we we entertained ourselves and had neighbors that were our friends and we ate at each other's houses and you did cookouts and those kinds of things, cause that's what you could afford to do, yeah, we didn't know we were broke though Again at once.
Speaker 1:I'll say it again we didn't know we were poor, Nobody said it.
Speaker 1:We were having fun. Yeah, we had a great time together. I mean, we still have a great time together, but there wasn't like all that other stuff, right, it's kind of like the world of cash flow now, where everything is a monthly payment. They've broken everything down and if you start adding them up it gets to be ridiculous. But we do get those comments. You would post the video and it'll be with the car and the car will be in front of the house. We post the video and it'll be with the car and the car will be in front of the house. And then there's the. You know, you're a narcissist or whatever, or you're a must be nice to live in a castle, or something like no, it's just a regular house here in Nashville, but uh, no, it's, you know it, I would like to have something like that. That's what you get.
Speaker 1:And I said, well, and I've done this, I've pulled some people out of the comment section in YouTube that were. I said, look, I'm, I'm agreeing to hire you right now. If you can get yourself to Nashville, then, uh, I'm going to drug test you, dmv and background check. If you pass the three of those, uh, I'll put you to work for I don't remember what it was at $15 an hour, right, and uh. And if you stick with it for a couple of years as a, as an on-call service technician, with a company truck and everything, you could make a hundred, a six figure, that you know, six figure income, uh. But if you don't, if then I'm going to fire you. But so put your money where your mouth is. Right now.
Speaker 1:I'll, yes, cause we're always looking for great people, but there's a it's a lot easier to keyboard warrior that, and I think there's a general sentiment now. Maybe it is harder, maybe it does. I mean, I think, especially here don't buy a house in Nashville. We moved here to start a new life. Sometimes it takes doing what A bold move. Yes, I mean what our forefathers did and packed up their stuff and got on a ship and came to the United States. This is just another state or something you can drive. Go to Chapel Hill. Property's cheaper there, absolutely, you know, uh, but I'm, I'm it's not that I'm not sympathetic, though, but it's. It literally is just about uh, it's, it's, it's people that want people that, do you know, and it's just a matter of of just you got to start somewhere, so so do it, you know, post your first video. You know, grab that first job and just stick to it. Find something you like to do and then just drill in, then get educated, go, get go to school at night, whatever, Well, they want your result.
Speaker 3:They don't want what you had to do in order to get the result.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, our first house was in Mount Juliet. Yeah, you know, I mean we. I wanted to live in Franklin, or you Franklin or Nashville, so that we didn't drive. I mean, our drive to work from Mount Juliet at the time was at least half an hour each way, and then add rush hour traffic to it. Our second house was in Thompson Station, and that was back in 1998. And we looked at the same house in Franklin, a new construction home. We said, well, we can't afford that. So we went out to Thompson station. We bought out there because it was a, it was a lot less expensive. Um, yes, you have gas for your car, but that's I mean. You do what you got to do today.
Speaker 2:That's right you know to to get in the door, get the real estate, let it appreciate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really what it was. We bought a house, paid on it for 10 years, paid most of it off, bought the bigger house, lived in it for 10 years, paid most of it off, bought the next one, lived in it for 10 years, paid most of it off, and so this is the fourth house in 35 years or so. So that's all you have to do. That's it. So how? 35 years or so, that's all you have to do. How do I do this? 35 years of buying and selling houses and gutting it out? It could be yours. That's really the American. It is the American story and it could still be done. We have a. I don't know. Our kids did it. She didn't even come home from college. She immediately moved in with a guy, got married and now they're on their. What are they? She's 30, turning 30.
Speaker 2:She'll be 30 in June.
Speaker 1:And they're on their third house. Yeah, yeah, same thing. Yeah, yep, it can be done.
Speaker 3:But they learn from you. Yep, you set the example, you set the tone for what, what hard work looks like, what sticking with something and growing it and, at the same time, also the bold move you also set the stage for if something's not working or there's not opportunity, you go to the opportunity. So I mean kudos to both of you for one, setting that, that tone from the beginning, being courageous enough to do that. But two, I mean also what a great um role model you both are as a team that sticks together. It's barrier. There you go, yeah, absolutely, yep.
Speaker 2:We couldn't do it, you know, without each other. Sure, you know it makes a huge difference when you have a, a team, a team of two.
Speaker 3:You know working together, yeah, so well, I know, when I was looking, uh, you know, my wife and I didn't meet till we were in our thirties, and part of it was my parents were a team Like. They were both strong in different areas and they complimented each other. Well, dad was always more outspoken. My wife I mean my, my mom was uh, much more subtle and, uh, not outspoken, but they were, at the end of the day, they were a great team, and so I was looking for somebody to be my teammate. It was. I didn't want to be drugged through life, I didn't want to have to drag somebody through life. I wanted somebody that wanted to walk with me. And when my wife and I met, I said you know, this is, this is a one-time deal. I'm getting married one time and you know that's so. That's what we try to show our son is. You know, we're a great team Castle.
Speaker 1:Castle. I just dig that I just know he's going to get so many girlfriends with that name so jealous. I just know he's going to get so many girlfriends with that name.
Speaker 3:So jealous Well, the funny part about his name. So my wife is very kind of mainstream and doesn't like to color outside of the box, and so her great grandfather's name was Castle. And I said that's great. And she goes no, that's too subversive, we can't name him Castle. So I came up with the worst names over the next six months so that Castle would seem way more sane than the things that I was coming up with. And so, luckily, castle won out. And when he found out y'all were coming in today, he goes can I go? No, buddy, you got school, but I'm sure he'll make an appearance at Perry's again this summer. Um, who's been a mentor for you guys? You know it's not like somebody's. You know, helped y'all out, you know, gave you a bunch of money or anything but along the way you had to have great mentors in order to kind of show you that it could be done. Who's been, who's been, one of those for y'all?
Speaker 1:Um, I will be the first to tell you that I am not the smartest person in any room. Do I say that a lot? I literally am not. But I think my gift is surrounding myself with smart people. And there's Herman Wallace, the prior owner of the company American eating and Googling. When I bought it was the consummate business coach for 30 something years. He's just a genius, and, matter of fact, he's. We had dinner with him the other night again and he's just been excellent on the business side. My dad, I think, is one of the smartest people I've ever met. He just I don't know that, just, we just had very good, I guess, like religious conservative upbringing, generally speaking. And then I just have to say, uh, um, there's just a bailiwick of people like Kurt Curtis and some of these other Alan Deavers I don't know, I'll have to get him to listen to this now and maybe he'll start listening, but he's another Jag guy, mind, that is just.
Speaker 1:I have this list of people that I can just call Josh Rieger, one of my buddies that's on Blacktop Rally. That's probably one of the smartest people I ever met. He's a builder Now. He's like we did your garage right, yes, yeah, yeah, but I, I could literally there's, I could name 50 there. It's not just like two or three individuals that that shaped me. I'm still being shaped by dozens of individuals every day. Sure, and it. Dozens of individuals every day. Sure, uh, and it just uh. But we try to surround ourselves with, with you know, fantastic, professional, yes, successful, good people, yeah, uh, that I, I don't know if we surround ourselves with it, but we are surrounded by them. Ross Robinson with Annie Rose you know what a great guy you know. Uh, you know, there's, there's just, there's just a list.
Speaker 2:Well, and on the personal side, our parents I mean you talk about you only want to get married one time. My parents were married for 38 years before my dad passed and my mother didn't remarry after that.
Speaker 2:His parents, over 50 years over 50 years before his dad passed. And then my grandparents, you know, and, of course, the further back you go, people didn't. You know where you stick together and you see that that these parents are. You know, was it an easy marriage for my mom and dad? No, my mom got married when she was 16 years old.
Speaker 1:So no quitters here, that's right.
Speaker 2:She just, you know, back in the day, you know you got married that early, you know back in the day. You know you got married that early. But she, you know, anybody who's been married for a long time knows you can't, you don't just give up.
Speaker 3:That's right, you know it's work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know so. You love each other, so you and your team.
Speaker 3:That's it.
Speaker 2:So I think we both grew up seeing that separately and I think that was a big help.
Speaker 3:I love it. I love it Now, we touched on it just briefly. But health and, Melissa, I know this is much more in your realm what are some of the things that you're doing for your health that are part of your regimen?
Speaker 2:I try to work out five days a week. Okay, an hour would be great. Sometimes I don't have an hour, but I do what I can Strength training. You know, when I was in my 30s and 40s it was, oh, I want to look a certain way. So I'm going to work out to make that happen. Now, when I see the health that my mom was in before she passed and the health that his mom is in now, I want to be strong. So I do a lot of, a lot of strength training now, a lot more than I used to, because I want to be able to Sit down and get up and hold my grandchildren and play with them as I get older.
Speaker 2:So you watch what you eat and you try to eat clean. And you know there's all of this dye that's bad for you now. And you know we did find that there is something to that, because we went to Europe and ate what we wanted and came back and we weighed less when we got back than we did when we left, because the food over there is different. So we've really been careful about trying to eat clean foods, you know, without the organic, you know the organic foods, those kinds of things and then just, even if it's just a walk, you know, a half hour walk a day, if that's all you have time for that's better than nothing.
Speaker 1:She dances in the pool. That's what she does.
Speaker 2:I do I like to do water aerobics and I just get in there and play because it's fun. Yeah, absolutely you know there's no.
Speaker 1:I think generally the message was there's no, there's no magic secret or something you can buy on TikTok shop or something like that. That's right. It's just old fashioned hour of cardio or hour of strength, right. And then and then we just tend to eat better, eat more natural food and eat it better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, uh, yeah, and I do it first thing in the morning. Okay, I try to make sure that I start the day that way because, you know, I mean, I retired um last year, um first time in my life. I've never, you know, I've ever not worked Sure, and I had in my head that I was, oh, I could work out two hours a day when this happens. Well, no, that didn't happen. Things come up.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:So I make sure that I get my required time in before I go do anything in the mornings.
Speaker 3:Okay Now. Are you working out at the house? Are you doing a class somewhere? What's your favorite thing?
Speaker 2:Well, right now I work out at the house. There's a gym upstairs. We had the upstairs finished and it's a full gym and I use Les Mills. It's a workout program out of the UK, I think, but many years ago. Through gym memberships they offer strength training, body combat, which is like a kickboxing class, a dance class, and so I subscribed to that and it's like a hundred dollars a year.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's just I stream it. Half the probably three quarters of the gym upstairs belongs to me because it's just I stream it. Half the probably three quarters of the gym upstairs belongs to me because it's just open floor you know, as is the rest of the house.
Speaker 3:You get the garage my garage.
Speaker 1:I can't, I can't complain.
Speaker 3:That's right, that's right.
Speaker 2:So I mean that program's easy. I have fun with it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, cool.
Speaker 3:Well, like I mentioned earlier, uh, and kind of a segue, you were talking about special operators earlier, uh, so my, uh, my favorite doctor is regenerative doctor, dr Mike Meehan, and he's in Miami, but he's, uh, he's coming up this this weekend to do a four part series and so, uh, he's got a couple of special operators. One of the things that they do the clinic that he works at is they have a great foundation where they help support our special operators Green Beret, special forces, all those guys Because a lot of those, when they get out of the military, they're just broken like their bodies are just run into the ground Right, and so they use a lot of regenerative medicine techniques and cutting edge stuff to help those guys get back to where they can enjoy life and, you know, the retirement that they have earned, be able to, you know, not have nearly as much pain. So Dr Mike's coming in and a couple of special operators are flying up with him and there's just so much that can be done. And two years ago he put me in contact with the Garm Clinic in Roatan, honduras, and you know it's not a secret, but my past was I was over 300 pounds for most of my life. And when I finally lost the weight, about the year that I turned 40, my knees were toast and you just you know it's that much damage. And they said you know you're going to need double knee replacement in the next 24 months.
Speaker 3:And I was looking for how do I not do that? How do I, how do I keep what I got? How do I fix it? And so had stem cell therapy there in Honduras and it's the best decision I've ever made by far. And if you had asked me 60 days out, I would have said I wasted my money. But by day 75, I started having days with no pain and I was frustrated because I did a.
Speaker 3:I did an interview with a men's health magazine just a few months ago and they left out the fact that it worked. So they asked where I went and what I did and all these things, but they did not include that by March I had it done in August and by March I had over a hundred days of no pain. And these days I go to CrossFit five days a week, hammer on them and no pain. Um, so there's all kinds of things that you can do and it's not, it's not like we were raised knowing that food dyes were bad for us, or what clean eating look like, or or you know that we needed to work out, especially strength training, uh. But now that we know it, we can't go back. We've got to make sure that we put it into, put it in place and keep doing it.
Speaker 1:That's interesting. I got hung outside on an airplane. I was a toe jumper and it tore my bicep and my shoulder. That was the original injury and, uh, I ended up having MRIs done on both and they ended up doing the other shoulder Cause he said there was something there to fix. But there was nothing left to fix on this one, just army just pt'd me through it, sure, and it's like you have substitution muscles. The other muscles kind of take over and get you through it until you beat those up on a bowling alley one day, and then it just doesn't. So I just but I've kind of settled into I won't hang ceiling fans or paint shutters for a living type of thing. But that's interesting, though there's maybe something else out there.
Speaker 3:I was going to say I mean it'd be worth looking into. There's a lot of things they can do these days. In fact, I don't know if either one of you follow Gary Brekka, but you know, gary's whole thing is that if you're alive today, that within the next five years of the medical advances that they're going to be experiencing with AI, that you shouldn't die or have um, you know where your lifespan and your health span don't line up anymore, that if you want to fix it, you can.
Speaker 1:Um so. I need to really get my act together for the next five years.
Speaker 3:Well, you, you know you want to be around Melissa's, Melissa's making sure she's going to be able to drive the cars. You know she still looks like she's 30.
Speaker 1:That's right. That's right.
Speaker 3:I got to keep my game up, that's right, but you want to be able to enjoy those cars, you want to be able to enjoy your grandkids, or maybe even your great grandkids, and that's, that's the spice of life.
Speaker 1:One of the things that we, uh, we've touched on there but the bowling side of things had no idea that you, you guys, were bowlers, um, and your, your daughter, was was the real deal right, yeah, we uh, um, she, when she started high school she needed a sport and so she, uh, she tried basketball and uh, and running and a track and uh, I might have done those in middle school and that just didn't work out for her very well. And she went to Independence High School here in I guess it's Thompson Station, and in her freshman year they started the bowling, the girls bowling team there, and she was approached by a friend that was a league bowler, a couple friends, and they needed one more person in order to have a bowling team their first year. So Shannon signed on and uh, and she, she did it for fun. She was, she was the last bowler on the team, you know, and it uh, I think there were seven bowlers and she didn't often end up being in the scoring for for them. Uh, and I think she ended up that with the year with 110 average and uh.
Speaker 1:So we, but we started bowling on the weekends down in like columbia and uh, we, we, uh ran into in the norm, who I mentioned, yeah and uh, norm. Well, I was just talking to norm one day and he was watching her. He said I think I could work with her. She has a natural a date to her, a grace to herself. They said I think I can work with that and do something if you'd like to try it. And so we, uh, we started. She started working with him every every week or so and by the end of the summer, like the her sophomore year, her first game was a 269, her second game was a 220. She was close to setting a state record for a three-game series, her first tournament in high school, and it's such an art form. To me it was the most beautiful. It was the most beautiful thing in the world to watch her bowl, cause she just, uh, it was so mechanically graceful and she was just so good at it.
Speaker 1:You know, um, and it was just, and it that became our family for six years or so, four years in high school and two years in college, uh, where we, we bowled. We were bowling 50 to 60 games a week, I believe it. Yes, as we were going along there and we traveled from Chicago to Florida. I mean, she was traveling 14, 13 to 15 places a year out of state and we would go with them, we travel with the team and we just lived in bowling alleys and I just loved it, not the most healthy atmosphere on the planet. I mean, you've seen, if you go to like a hundred alley and this is going to bore all those non-car people out there, but we'll just skip through it but like in Cleveland or something or Cincinnati, you'd have a bowling alley with a hundred lanes in it and you've got three kids per lane, so it's all those bowlers plus five bowling balls and then all the dads are on three step ladders along the back wall.
Speaker 1:That was awesome we had cup holders and I would stand on a ladder for 14 hours a day Cause they would bowl all the way till 12 o'clock at night. It was the best. We just loved that whole experience. But she did say she ended up with a couple of labral tears in two different years and had two different hip surgeries from. Well, you know, what it is with bowling, in my opinion, is it's you have a lot of weight on one side of your body and so there's this very asymmetry. That's happening all the time besides, like thumb injuries and tendons, but it also has. If you don't keep everything linear and correct, then your body's going to start really wearing just because it's not doing things equally. That's right, and that's because she was 100 pounds, right, 105 pounds, and she's throwing a 15 pound ball.
Speaker 3:Yeah, percentage wise it's a lot Right.
Speaker 1:Uh, but it it, it just uh. When she actually actually she had her first surgery, we we actually hired a uh, we had an orthopedic surgeon, a silver whatever, uh bowl uh, coach, coach, uh, her coach and a couple of other people all just come out to the bowling alley one day and they just watched her and it was that silver-ranked coach that just said her slide foot was turning out like 15 degrees outside and that created that asymmetry through the rest of her that caused the labral tear both times. But it's interesting how that type of stuff comes out. But what a cool community that was. It was kind of just like the other communities that we've been involved with. It's just, anytime you have a common element, like as soon as you and I heard that we could talk for the next two hours, that's right, just about that For all the non-bowlers out there.
Speaker 1:And you see the bowlers with the three-ball bag bag and the two ball bag and the shoes and everything like that. There's a science to bowling and it has to do with the arrows, has to do with angles and it has to do with how a lane breaks down over time. I was left-handed. Well, I am left-handed, so I had the benefit.
Speaker 3:Well, and I joke with people and tell them that I wanted to be a lefty. So bad, yes, turned my game Because you're late.
Speaker 1:What?
Speaker 3:I'm right-handed, so I ended up on the left-hand side, did you?
Speaker 1:really.
Speaker 3:Throwing backwards, yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh yes, that makes sense Because the lane breaks down a tenth, Because you know it's only one in ten bowlers are left-handed, so the lane would hold up so you could be more consistent and better over time.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just loved it, didn't you love it? I ate so much, so many patty melts.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, Well, a few months ago we had Larry Schmidto on. Oh, yes, you know Larry started the Sounds and then worked for the Rangers and then, after he retired from baseball, now he owns 17 bowling centers. So you know, if you're bowling in the southeast he's probably.
Speaker 1:It's good to see that some of them are sticking, because there was a concern for a while that bowling would go away Because it's expensive to run a bowling alley. It is, and it's so expensive to bowl. If you're not league bowling or something like that, then it could be a $100 night for you and a date and a and a kid or something like that.
Speaker 3:Easily easily.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but no, it's. It's good to see that they're doing it.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, and Mookie bets just bought the bowling center Rob bowl out in Clarksville, so now he owns two. He owns the one in Franklin and then the, the pinnacle in that was on the Disney channel.
Speaker 1:What was his name?
Speaker 2:I don't remember.
Speaker 1:Oh man, I can't believe it. There's a young man that you knew, oh, cameron, cameron Doyle. Yeah, cameron, yes, that was good, he's like a superstar. He kind of carried it for a little bit. He was a year ahead of, he was a year behind Shannon right.
Speaker 2:I think he was younger than her I'm not sure by a year.
Speaker 3:That would make sense. He's probably late 20s right now.
Speaker 1:So we would go in and you would have your high school bowling tournament, and then you've got even the big bowlers are in their 210s or 220s, and then Cameron would throw a 750 and be mad.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Because he did it.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and he's just crushing it, just crushing it A whole different world. Oh oh, it's like a superstar. Absolutely but it's fun to watch stuff like that.
Speaker 3:It's really fun to watch because you know you see somebody come in and just dominate like that you know, just even just just to be there, for it is fun so well, so kind of keeping on the bowling side of things. If, if you were going to do a we ask this every, every episode is if you were going to do a charity event. So let's just say it was cars and bowling. What are a couple of cars that you would absolutely want at this event and who are a couple of people that you would want on your bowling team? If the whole point was to raise just an insane amount of money for a great cause like Annie Rose or something?
Speaker 1:Cars and bowling.
Speaker 2:I've got nothing, I've got nothing.
Speaker 1:I mean I could throw cars out there all day there's just, it's so disassociated. I had car buddies that I bowled was our, I like our common element that, uh, but uh, no, I, I just can't tie the car and the bowling together. I understand what you're asking, but I mean what? Would you throw me a car? Oh, american muscle.
Speaker 3:Well, those are easy. Just because you think of bowling is really more of a pastime American sport yeah. And so, in fact, the photo shoot that I did for that magazine Dad brought out is the 57 Nomad, the 48 Ford, the 57 Bel Air and the 55 Bel Air, and they were all lined up right there in front of East Bowl, which East Side Bowl is a retro-looking looking bowling center and just had a had a field day it was. It was a ton of fun.
Speaker 1:I did love the whole uh for a while on the Sunday bowling where they would have the celebrities, and Kevin Hart was one of the people in there. Oh yeah, I think that was a huge boost for for bowling.
Speaker 3:It still is. It still is. People like mookie betts, you know. You know he uh got some new hardware last year with uh winning the world series and then you know he's he's bowling.
Speaker 1:You know a couple events this year on tour, so you know, I think bowling's very uh, it's close to golf because you, you throw, you pick a club for the right for the right conditions, and you pick a club for the right for the right conditions, and you pick a bowling ball for the right condition, and you, you can, and then you use the same technique in the same throw and adjust your equipment, your result, by the equipment or by where you're, where you're lining up on the lane. Yeah, yeah, I find that that that's the science part of it. If you want to move the ball three inches more over on the frame, then you adjust your feet forward or backwards or adjust an arrow over or something like that on the front end.
Speaker 3:Well, and for car guys, I have two different scenarios that I try to kind of bridge that gap. So in one scenario I tell them it's like different types of tires You've got rain tires and then different temperatures or conditions, you've got different tires for that. It's what your bowling balls that are doing. Or if somebody's not into the tire side of things, you can say okay, it's like racing, and the oil pattern is like a different type of race, and so we've got rally, or we might have a Formula One or we might have NASCAR it of race, and so we've got rally, or we might have a formula one or we might have NASCAR it's. It's going to be, you know, a different setup, a different car for, for different types of races.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've got uh, the tail of the dragon next weekend. That's uh. If you ever heard of uh. There's a YouTuber out of Austin, texas is, it's a really good friend of ours, it's a Dan Holbert. It's a normal guy supercar and his whole premise is uh, um, anyone can own a Ferrari if they do their own work, and that's how that that started an F430 and he would do his own work on it. Um, but he's, he's got uh 15 guys that are shipping cars from around the Austin area to teleco planes near the tail of the dragon and we're meeting them out there next week and we're going to. I guess we'll spend three or four days just driving in the mountains, but it uh, it's the same scenario there.
Speaker 1:It's trying to make the decision about what car. You know, like we've, I'd like to bring the, the XCSV project eight, because it's with the type of cars they're shipping. They're there, the bigger Jags, higher uh, bigger, uh Ferraris and things, sure, and the, the project H, just weird enough that it would that could fit in with that group, but it's uh and it's all wheel drive, but it's on cup twos and so now it's. You know, you have to kind of watch the weather, cause you don't want to be stuck two days out on those roads with cup twos because, uh, just, they're just not a wet weather tire. Sure, uh, just put new tires on it actually, but uh, I don't know. Um, that's a peculiar question.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you win.
Speaker 1:I can usually make some stuff up.
Speaker 3:I can shoot from the hip.
Speaker 1:All good and guys. There's really not much I know more about than those two objects right. But they're so disassociated you do one inside and you do one outside. That's right.
Speaker 3:That's right. Um, what's an event or what's something you guys got going on the summer, maybe a little further out than the tail of?
Speaker 1:the dragon. That that you guys are really looking forward to, um, god, we've got so much stuff. I'm I believe we're joining one 11. So we're going to become members of that. So we're going to do some more of that. I just like the idea that there's going to be a community around cars, just like there's just like golf, uh.
Speaker 1:But we are, we're looking at, um, possibly going to Ireland this fall maybe. I've got a lot of contacts there in the Jag world. Uh, the president of the Jaguar Ireland Club is a friend of ours online, yeah, and she uh basically has got it set up that if we go there for like two weeks is what we're thinking and stay, you know, basically ireland, you, just you go around the outside of the island. Uh, she's she said she's got four or five, six people at the different cool places to go where they would set us up with bed and breakfast or something like that. Down there maybe borrow a car or something. But just, I think that would be the. An epic thing would be to get a, to rent a Jag and then hang out with all the Jag people and maybe tied into one of their big events that they have there. We did England into one of their big events that they have there. We did England.
Speaker 2:What a year or two ago, a couple years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we missed Goodwood by one week and I've always wanted to go to Goodwood but it didn't click with me at the time.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I kind of just moved that a week and we could have caught that. That would have been good. And then possibly we just did moda, miami and I, just, depending on how the ireland thing goes, maybe monterey we have been to monterey in five years or so. Have you ever been? I have not. It's uh, we'd never seen a konoseg before in our life. And then you see 20 and you're and you talk to horatio, you talk to christian von konoseg and I'd never seen a pagani before. And I and you talk to Horatio, you talk to Christian von Konesag and I'd never seen a Pagani before, and then I'm standing next to Horatio, pagani and 20 Paganis and everything's just so over the top there. It uh, it's just everyone has to go, it just cause it's. It's surreal, the volume.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you have to pick and choose what you want to do at that point in time, and the concourse is the least desirable thing. I'll get banged on this, right, I guess. But the concourse it's a lot of brass cars and they're pretty fascinating. Their own right, sure, but now I want to see the stuff that we you know, the cool stuff on the street. That's what I want to see. I'm just as happy sitting with our other car guys. I went with five other guys from here and our wives, uh Ross and John Zelnick and some of the other guys that were that we have lunch with Sure Uh and uh. We got a duplex together and we all just piled in and then we would just stand out on ocean drive and just watch the cars go by, cause it's just fascinating what people have out there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. Well, it's, it's not. I say it's, it's not normal, it like that, that many cars at that high end just being driven yes, yeah, Well, and that's that's.
Speaker 1:what's cool is that it's a cars in motion are always better than a static car. I love I'm a video guy more than I am a picture guy. Yeah, I love to see and stuff doing the purpose that they were designed to do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love it. Well, team, thank you so much for coming in and hanging out with us and having a having a good chat. Um, melissa, anything, anything you want to tell people out there? What do they need to know if they're going to come, come check out?
Speaker 2:uh, driving with Melissa do they need to know if they're going to come. Come check out uh. Driving with Melissa.
Speaker 1:Oh, I don't know, james is is the brainchild behind that? Really, it's not me. She's terribly shy, she really is. Um, when I told her, I said, hey, uh, we're going to do a podcast, and she's like, okay, we'll do that. And then I it was last night she's like I don't know if I'm not really thrilled about that right now, but you're awesome, though it's just a cause in. Really, you just want the ideas to be yourself.
Speaker 3:Absolutely yes, it's just a conversation, yeah, right.
Speaker 2:Well, I hated zoom meetings when I was working. You know, I didn't mind being in the office and having meetings in person and conducting training sessions in person and speaking in front of people, as long as I knew what I was talking about. But there's something about like the zoom and the camera that just I'm shy.
Speaker 3:It's all good, we like what we like you know, we have spun it off to.
Speaker 1:Uh, so we, you know, there's driving with Melissa. That's what we're talking about. We have blocked in garage. We that's what we're talking about. We have blocked in garage. We also have dining with Melissa, which we're working on. It's that's kind of an opportunist thing. Where we it's a real food for real people. Where we it's it's basically restaurant reviews for people that know nothing about food, being us and just what we, what we like about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, uh, bourbon beer. Bring a trailer, which you've heard. I saw that one. Yeah, bourbon beer. And bring a trailer, which you've heard, I saw that one. Yeah, that's really just a Nashville social thing where we'll get I don't know 50 people at my house parked in the yard and we'll do a little bit of bourbon tasting. We'll watch. Bring a trailer live, and it's more like men's bunco. But the wives come out too. That's right, and we've used the whole backside of a restaurant before or something like that, used like the whole backside of a restaurant before, or something like that. There's nothing like watching an individual whose car is being sold on bring a trailer, or they're buying one on bring a trailer, surrounded by 20 or 30 of their car friends, uh, either, supporting that poor decision which I? I bought a very expensive jag with 20 people down at global. You know I bought tequila and pizzas and said, well, do your worst, you know, right, uh, yeah, so there's that, that we have a few more.
Speaker 1:Uh, it just uh, I don't know, just uh yeah, it is yeah, social media has been great for bringing there is has been great for bringing there is a. There's an inherent evil with social media, uh, but it all has to do with the inputs, you know, and so, and that's with our content. We want everything to be positive, uh, and so we, uh, and it's. It's just been such a great community thing for us to have driving with Melissa and meet people like you and uh and all the rest of the people that we deal with here in Nashville, and we've got friends all over the United States, and one of my best friends is, uh, uh, david Moore, the guy that designed and built the XKRS GT that we've got in our garage. Uh, we talked to him, him and his family, all the time. He's supposed to come here to Nashville, stay with us, drive the cars that he designed and built. We're going to go down to Jack Daniel's distillery, yeah, and none of that would have ever happened if we hadn't done this?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's been great. We're still we're not done. That's right.
Speaker 3:Well, even the Friday lunches at Perry's. It's just a great group.
Speaker 1:Everybody's there to have a good conversation, enjoy some good food. That started out with four guys sitting on the corner three years ago, yeah. And then, uh, I I met yannis down there one day and it was just slow and I said, you know, I bet we could fill this place up and I'll bet they'll give us the valet parking if we do it. If we could just do this. And it just uh, yeah, now it's, if you have a really good day, we'll have 30 cars out there. Oh, yeah, you know, 30 people in there and that's just a great community thing to do.
Speaker 3:It absolutely is Good stuff. Well, team, thanks so much for coming in. Uh, James, it's driving with Melissa on all channels, right?
Speaker 1:Right, okay.
Speaker 3:Facebook, instagram, tik TOK and for somebody that maybe has never heard of, of driving with Melissa or octane a full octane garage before this episode. What's a great episode for them to check out, to get a great introduction.
Speaker 1:Um, for full octane garage. Gosh. If you could go back a couple of years and just watch our bloopers. That's the true curtain I nice, yeah, Um, there, there, I don't know. We, we, we produce face. Uh, driving with Melissa. So much Facebook and Instagram and not so much on the YouTube, so there's nothing specific there, but, uh, on on with with Kurt and full octane garage, uh, gosh.
Speaker 1:There's a one of my favorite videos we ever shot. We had a gentleman that bought a XJ120 replica Jaguar in Canada and drove it 2,000 miles home without a top on it. Wow, and it's just a fascinating adventure. His name is Paul. That's about four years deep into there. I think it's like 2,000 miles in a Jag with no top is what it's called, and we just had so much fun with that video and then we piled the outtakes onto the backside of it. Um, it's a curtain I just love hanging out and, uh, it's just a neat way to record it and and put it out there for other people and hopefully give them some other information while they're out there. But, yeah, I've been there Awesome in there.
Speaker 3:Awesome, just click, play all. That's right. Just click, play all. I love it. Well, team, you heard it here. On the charge for podcast Again, the special thanks to James and Melissa Smith for coming out and spending some time with us.
Speaker 3:Check out those YouTube channels. That's full octane, garage and driving with Melissa. They've got some great content. It's just fun to watch and, like James said, it's just positive content. There's so much negative out in the world. Takes, take some positivity and just add it to your life. Until next time, I'm Jim Cripps with the Charge Forward Podcast. Take care, team. Is Jim Cripps here with the Charge Forward Podcast? I just want to tell you I love you, I appreciate you listening, I appreciate you for subscribing and sharing the Charge Forward Podcast with people you know and you love, because that's what we're here for. We are here to share the amazing stories, the things that people have been through, the ways that they were able to improve their life, so that you can take little nuggets from theirs and help improve your story and be better tomorrow than you were today. I hope that this is the tool you needed at the right time and that you find value in the amazing guests that we bring each and every week. Thanks so much and don't forget, new episodes drop every Thursday.