Gary “Litefoot” Davis on Shattering Excuses and Becoming the First Native American Rap Mogul (Fan Fav)

This is a fan fav episode. Is it safe to say that everyone of us has challenges and roadblocks ahead to varying degrees? Maybe you even have some pretty big dreams but knowing where to start or how has you paralyzed. If you are getting stuck on fear of failure, not knowing who, how, or what, or even if it’s remotely possible for you to achieve a bigger dream, then this episode is for you. Gary Litefoot Davis is a Cherokee that has stepped out, and done the impossible against the odds. His story is compelling, but his get it done and go hard and relentless after your purpose attitude is worthy of pen and paper. He breaks down exactly how he looked at the overwhelming dream of being the first Native American rapper not being signed, starting his own record label, and touring the world from there. It was baby steps of a bigger goal, and this episode exemplifies what’s possible when you just take action and keep moving forward. Original air date: 4-27-2021 SHOW NOTES: Resilience | learning from generations, seeing entrepreneurship and losing it all [3:14] Awakening | Realizing no one is coming to save you, it’s all on you to make it happen [5:57] Cultivating fortitude | Having an intention and take baby steps and give each step 100% [8:04] Steps & Goals | Gary lays out how to identify the steps you need to attain goal in detail [9:58] Model the Greats | Gary on how to model your success and make it your own [11:14] Be Fluid | Gary on how to be adaptive so you can grow and be malleable [12:46] Music Influences | Gary shares learning from artists that have influenced his music [14:34] Independent | Gary explains why he says “we are the people we’ve been waiting for” [18:07] Being First | Gary on knowing where you get your strength and leading in difficulty [20:13] Native American Struggles | Gary exposes the lack of self-belief & self hatred [28:30] Failure | Gary explains the lesson and not getting caught in negative energy of failing [32:59] Entrepreneur | Gary on the journey, the reward and tools needed to be successful [38:25] Get Started | Why you have to believe in what you’re doing and if not keep looking [44:23] Follow Gary Davis: Website: ⁠https://litefoot.com/⁠ Youtube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6u1Jc6KwTiHYdyGBI7b8jA⁠ Facebook: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/LITEFOOT/⁠ Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/litefoot/⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices https://megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Tom Bilyeu?

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• 0:45Tom Bilyeu?

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• 1:30Tom Bilyeu?

  leading by example. Without further ado, my friends, the one and only Gary Lightfoot Davis. Wow. Hi, Doug. How are you doing? Good to be here. It's a pleasure. Thanks for coming on.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Absolutely. Glad to be here.

• 1:45Tom Bilyeu?

  Dude, it's awesome to have you. Hearing your story, obviously, it's a very unconventional tale of success.

• 1:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:52Tom Bilyeu?

  And it started from something pretty powerful. Walk me through what happened with the financial collapse for your family, what that led to, and what your parents taught you through that hard times is pretty amazing.

• 2:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I had grown up with a father that had shown me, a grandfather that had also shown me, hard work. And that through hard work, we can accomplish, providing for our family if nothing else. That we can show them that maybe we didn't have these things when we grew up, but we can give back if we just get a very clear-cut idea of what we can do, however small that it might be, to make an impact. And so for my grandfather, it was way tougher. He had a way tougher start in school, had run away from a very well-known Indian boarding school in Oklahoma, and hitchhiked back all the way with his little brother to Claremore,

• 2:51Speaker 01

  Oklahoma, right outside of Claremore, Oklahoma. And he, his whole life, taught himself resiliency, and showed us resiliency, that you can do things that will sort of help motivate other people. And my father was the beneficiary of that. He saw that it was possible to be an entrepreneur. And then myself, I would see both of these guys. My grandfather, at that point, very well along in his years, getting up every morning and going to work at four in the morning, in very hot Oklahoma weather in the summer, then coming home and working all evening in the garden. And I couldn't get enough of that. I wanted to be around him as much as I possibly could. Then my father, seeing him do everything that he needed to do, even if it meant taking

• 3:36Speaker 01

  it into his own hands to get it done, and just me, through osmosis, absorbing all of this, and seeing these two men do very, very great things for our family. And then, in a turn of events, we lost everything. And it was pretty devastating. We went from having a decent, sort of, middle-class life to...

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Really sort of having to lose our home and end up living with my grandparents and the burden that that put on them and then I had to sort of forego school for a year to get out of that and go work. Not that they forced me to do that, I just felt like, look, these guys have a load on them and what can I do to help? And so I went and got a job and tried to contribute the best that I could with my paycheck to provide groceries and food and I just probably didn't realize it then, but I was building this feeling that I need to do as much as I possibly can so that we never have to go through this situation again, so that as an adult, things will be different for me.

• 4:46Speaker 01

  So I was fighting and I was fighting to try to make sure that I kept moving forward. And I realized that if it was going to happen for me, I probably was going to have to make it happen. That there was going to be no way that somebody's going to swoop in and just put it in my lap and that it was just all going to be there for me, so...

• 5:04Tom Bilyeu?

  When did you start thinking that? Because that's a pretty incredible like moment of awakening that shuts most people down.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:12Tom Bilyeu?

  But it definitely didn't shut you down. So at what age do you start actually thinking in that way?

• 5:17Speaker 01

  Around the time that things started to fall apart with my parents' marriage. Even in high school, there was this sort of guy that was the it guy on the team and another guy that his father had built the stadium, so you know, he was going to play, regardless of what happened and regardless of how good he was. So I started to learn these lessons, that it's not always about how good you are, how talented you are, you have to work 10 times as hard to cut through some of this. And as I was going through this, I lost my grandparents, both of them, within a very short period of time. So here I am, I think, sort of being forged, you know, in the flames to realize that... You really can depend on yourself.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  You, of course, have to have many great people around you. But I knew that if it was going to happen for me, I had to keep moving forward. And maybe that was a stumble, maybe it was a crawl, maybe it was just barely trying to put one thing in front of the other during that time. But I kept pushing forward, I kept moving forward. And I think that's one of the lessons I still carry forward with me to this day. When I see things getting tough, or when I see things that seem insurmountable to other people, I know we just have to stay the course, we have to stay focused, and we keep putting one foot in front of the other. The key is to keep moving. And that's something that I think really was that turning point for me.

• 6:37Tom Bilyeu?

  But there were people that had that same belief, but they didn't make it. So what is it that people can cultivate? Like, right now, the kid that's listening to you, that for whatever reason, whether he's Native American or not, he's being told the same thing. Whatever you want to do, like, it's ridiculous. Like, what can they do to make sure they've got the fortitude to last through the whole res tour? Yeah, like, how do you build that in yourself?

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Every experience that comes your way is a tool. When we lost our home and we had to go live with my grandparents, I understood that these are just material things, that that doesn't define you, it's not, it doesn't make you. So when you get these challenges, when you have these things that come up in your life, continue to move forward. Now, how do you get to that place where you come back and move forward and that you become very intentional about it? I just did one of our footnotes, that's sort of a daily motivational, inspirational thing, about baby steps. Baby steps. Become intentional about what it is that you're going to do. Nobody in your family may have done that. Nobody in your community, your city, your country, may have done that. But if that's what's been put here for you, take it in baby steps.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Begin to see how that you're going to move forward. It's exactly what I did. Once I came and I understood my purpose, and I understood what it is that I was supposed to be doing, I sat down and created a plan as to how I was going to go about deploying that. And I think that's what you really have to do, and take it in baby steps. Don't try to do the whole thing at once. Sit it down, look at it, break it down, rebuild it, put it back together, and then as Sign timeframes to everything that you want to accomplish and break it down in phases. And then focus everything you have on that phase.

• 8:15Tom Bilyeu?

  How do you do that, by the way? So I heard you say this in probably the footnote you're talking about where you said, "Okay, I start with where I'm trying to get, right? This is my goal, and then I work backwards to where I am today."

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 8:25Tom Bilyeu?

  And I identify each of those baby steps that I have to take. How do you do that process? This is a question I get asked a lot because I'm totally with you. That's exactly what I do. But even like, I'm not sure how to explain that in between. Like, how do you get good at identifying the real tangible steps?

• 8:41Speaker 01

  We only know what we know right now about what we want to do, right? I mean, it could be, there could be things out there that will be so much more awesome, but we just, we don't know what we don't know.

• 8:52Tom Bilyeu?

  Right.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  And to the best of our ability, what we can say is, here's where I am right now. I can put a waypoint right there. I can mark that. And I know that I want to do X. And this is that thing. So if I'm going to step back, now what I've got to do is go to work. I've got to study every single bit of that and understand every iteration. You know, if it's to make an album. So what are all the steps in making an album? From content creation to music production to mastering to editing to recording the record. You know, what are all the business aspects of things that go into that? Who do I need to sing on all these 10 songs? How many are going to have a chorus that somebody sings? How many of them? So I start to understand what I have to do and what I'm going to need other people to do.

• 9:37Speaker 01

  And then I start to think, okay, well, what's the money going to be? How much do I have to put from a money point of view into each phase? So each phase has a capital raise that I have to ascertain all of these other things about what am I going to do to have to put into this to make it become a reality? And so that's where I'm focused on. Once I hone in on all of these things, you know, yes, it's to be on tour with somebody, right? But first, I have to have a record. I have to have an album.

• 9:59Tom Bilyeu?

  And do you model after somebody? Like, if you're trying to do an album, do you find somebody that you can get a lot of information from? And then copy that as a starting point? Or how do you do that process?

• 10:10Speaker 01

  I think every successful person always looks at other successful people as, especially in their field or a field they're endeavoring to get into. Why, why fix it if it's not broke? You just have to find your piece of it that you bring to make it you. But if they're doing it and they're doing it incredibly well, sit back and look at it and find all the ways that you can take that great model. Fix it where you feel like it needs to be fixed. Make it you. And then can you add to it? Can you put something on top of it? And then you take that and really that's when you start to really do the work and sit down and study each piece of it. And then you assign the timeframes. I think the timeframes, the timelines are the critical piece to it because that's where

• 10:55Speaker 01

  so many people go from just having a hobby or a dream. And I'm sure many people understand that dreams are tough because without a timeframe, a timeline, they may just stay dreams. When you assign a timeframe and a plan of action to it, it can become a goal and then it can become attainable. And I think that's what you have to do is it brings it makes it very present then. You have your work cut out for you. You know what you need to do and now it's just about doing it. So you execute.

• 11:27Tom Bilyeu?

  Do you set like really aggressive timelines or how do you decide your timeline?

• 11:33Speaker 01

  Very aggressive, very aggressive. I guess it would be that old adage, shoot for the stars and if you fail, then at least you're in the clouds, right?

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• 12:26Tom Bilyeu?

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• 14:02Speaker 01

  I remember somebody telling me when we were choreographing some of my first songs, just whatever you do, don't stop. Because more than 99% assuredness, nobody's gonna know it was a screw-up unless you stop. If you keep moving, everybody's gonna think that's just, you know, own it. If you were supposed to go right and you go left, then the minute that you realize, oh my God, I just went left, what am I gonna do? Go to the crowd and start going, you know, dancing to the crowd or do it. They're never gonna know that it was a mess-up. So, yes, you have to improvise, you have to adapt, you have to overcome, you have to be like water.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  The great Bruce Lee saying that, you know, you have to be able to conform yourself to those situations so that you ever don't do yourself a disservice by not growing and not becoming better. You have to be able to be malleable. And I think that's the greatest thing about being shaped and having been to that place. You know it may cause you to go through some growing pains, but there's, that's awesome. And at first, when you go through that, you're just, oh my God. It hurts. I don't want to be here. I don't want, oh, it hurts. And complain, complain, complain. But if you start to look at it, once you've got through it a couple of times, you're like, oh, here we go. This is probably gonna be pretty good. Ah, yeah, oh, this is gonna be awesome. I know it, woo, wow, man, this really hurts. So if this really hurt, and I know it's really gonna be good on the other side of it.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  And you just see yourself grow, and you grow, and you grow, and you grow. And I think that's how you get from, you know, rapping to a small group of people, and then speaking to larger audiences, and testifying to Congress.

• 15:36Tom Bilyeu?

  Wow, yeah, it is pretty unbelievable, like, the chasm that you've crossed. In fact, walk us through a little bit of that. So who are some of the performers that you modeled yourself after? Do you feel like you've learned a lot from? And what have you learned?

• 15:51Speaker 01

  So I would be remiss if I don't first go right to Michael Jackson. He's the man, and he was a master. There will be never another Michael Jackson. He just was all it. And so when you get into, you know, hip-hop, you know, so many folks influenced me from very early on. And then I remember all the way forward into folks that really started taking it into the mainstream, and, you know, folks that were really ridiculed, that were berated for their commercial success. MC Hammer was just ostracized because he got a British Knights shoe deal, and he was a sellout.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  And now you can't find a rapper that doesn't want a shoe deal.

• 16:39Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, they're like rushing to it.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  No, and you can't find a record label that's not factored in a shoe deal, a clothing deal, a movie deal, a commercial deal, a Sprite deal, you know, some something deal to promote a product or a brand. And it's just part of what it is, and so it's very accepted today. But I also looked at, you know, the people that hung on to these people, and milked them, drive all their money, and, you know, coming from the hood, or coming from your struggle, and, you know, everybody that sort of, you know, and I, to my degree, experienced some of that too. So it helped me as I was watching other people, and again, modeling, some of the mistakes, some of the things that they did do, didn't do, you know, getting into problems with, you know, your money in general. And so, long story short, just looking at sort of the things that Public Enemy were saying, things that-

• 17:24Tom Bilyeu?

  From a political activist standpoint? Because your lyrics are very political.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  Very much so.

• 17:31Tom Bilyeu?

  In fact, people were calling you militant, if I'm not mistaken, when you first came out.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  Early. They don't, now they're just like, wow, that's so awesome. And grandmas are like, this is awesome. Like, man, I wish you would've said something when people were calling me militant and an activist and all this stuff. I didn't feel like it was militant, you know? And I say that, and my stuff was, at least even with some of the concepts and things that Public Enemy was talking about, or, you know, X-Clan, or some of these, you know, old-school groups that, you know, Professor X and all these guys and, you know, the S1Ws and everybody that was down with Public Enemy. So, you know, it was trying to really, with my music, give folks some pride, some understanding,

• 18:18Speaker 01

  to remove some of the oppression. I think, you know, still to this day, we suffer from an intense amount of fear that I think is just genetically and through years of oppression built into our community. So people are very hesitant to do anything outside of the box, because every time we've done that, we've felt the wrath and the power of the government. And it's very tough, and again, you only know what you know, right? So some of my lyrics were very, very, just cut to the point and get right to it, because at the same time I was writing these things, I was having grandma's cry. I was out in the community, seeing how people were living, not just in my community, and not just the struggles that my family was having, but I was everywhere, constantly, in the community for years and years and years,

• 19:03Speaker 01

  just from one reservation to the next reservation. It would be nothing to be in three or four reservations within 10 days. And we're doing this every year for years. And so you can't help but absorb the struggle of everyone.

• 19:16Tom Bilyeu?

  What does it mean to you? You've got a really powerful saying, "We are the people we've been waiting for."

• 19:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:21Tom Bilyeu?

  What does that mean? What do you hope people do with that?

• 19:24Speaker 01

  There's a prophecy that our ancestors will return one day. And so you kind of take that at face value, and you sort of think, okay, so what does that mean? They're like, we're gonna see a bunch of spirits rolling up, you know? They're all, "Oh, hey, I haven't seen you in forever."

• 19:42Speaker 01

  I don't think it means that. I think that everything that has been done before us is a part of us. And so it's equally as important that we do everything that we possibly can with our life for everything that they did for us before we were even born. And I think that makes it even more powerful when you think of, we can't depend on other people. That's sort of been my through line is, I've never understood how you can be independently codependent. You either can be independent and stand on your own two feet and know who you are and what you're here for. And in the tough times, when everything is pulling you to do something, you know, that

• 20:23Speaker 01

  maybe just go with the flow, that's the moment you have to be the flow. And it may run in the opposite direction of the current that's asking you to jump in.

• 20:34Tom Bilyeu?

  You talked about that with your dad. You said, "One thing that I learned from my dad was never be afraid to stand alone." Or maybe even be the lone wolf. I don't, I might be painting that on it, but that was the image that I had.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  You get to sign both of those things to him.

• 20:44Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah. What does that mean? Like, how can, how have you manifest that in your own life? You seem the absolute embodiment of that, right? So being the first Native American rapper, when everybody not only is just gonna sort of obviously tell you that it can't be done, because that's where people always start, but this is also at a time where you would be the only person who isn't African American being taken seriously, with minor exceptions. So, like, how have you in your life been not afraid to stand alone? How has it served you? Like, looking at you, self-published your book, you created your own record label to sign yourself. Like, how has it worked for you? What are lessons that you hope people will take from that?

• 21:30Speaker 01

  It can be a very lonely journey. So you absolutely have to know where you get your strength. I remember walking on the set of Indian in the Cupboard, had never had an acting class in my life. And it started to dawn on me. And it becomes pretty big. Where you're like, "I'm the Indian in the Indian in the Cupboard." And this is already a classic book. This is a huge production. Frank Oz, Industrial Light and Magic, Paramount Pictures, Sony Studios. And I'm like, "Does anybody know what the hell I'm doing, man?"

• 22:03Speaker 01

  And I went in the soundstage and I was, first day of filming. And I found this quiet place over off of the set. And I just went down on one knee and I just asked the creator to give me everything that I needed to do what's in front of me. Not everybody's work ethic is the same. So if you don't feel like you're up to that place right now to run a marathon, how do you start training for a marathon? By running, by running more and running more. Baby steps. Take it as you can take it to grow and to work those muscles, develop those muscles. And if you're willing to go through the pains and the ebbs and the flows and the new shoes and the blisters and the whatever you gotta go through to get to that goal, you will run that marathon.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  It, you know, you speak about the people on the tour that couldn't make it through. Here, we're very focused, you know, of all of the people that we left to go on that journey with, only my wife, my son, myself, our documentary film director, and one person made it from beginning to end. There was literally a time where there was somebody complaining on the tour and I'll never forget this in my whole life. We were almost, you know, through, I think probably midway. And this really big guy, and he was hungry, right? And we hadn't had a chance to really eat well that day, but we were on our way to it.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  And he was complaining about not wanting to go anymore because he wanted to eat now.

• 23:34Tom Bilyeu?

  Right.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  So my wife went over. Now, you gotta imagine, this is a F-550, really large Ford pickup truck and a big, huge, long, forty-eight-foot trailer. So it's a pretty big tandem. And she walks over and she says, "Can I have your car keys?" And he says, "For what?" She's like, "Why don't you go get in and sit down and I'll drive."

• 23:59Speaker 01

  And he just shut up. That was it. He said, alright, so. And he just turned around and went and got in and started the car and we were ready to go. But I think you have to lead. You have to be willing to lead. And if you're not, nobody will follow that. And in the moments where it's most stressful, if you don't know where you're headed, if you don't know what you're supposed to be doing, nobody else will either. And you have to be able to stay that course and be willing to do what you need to do. So, there were times where the bus driver that we had, we think, okay, well, this is already hard enough on everything else we got to do. He didn't make it, probably, I would say he didn't make it 5,000, 3,000 miles of that 54.

• 24:41Tom Bilyeu?

  Wow.

• 24:42Speaker 01

  So I learned how to drive a tour bus.

• 24:44Tom Bilyeu?

  Just to paint the picture for people, the reason that people are dropping off is because you're having to drive through the night, you're doing multiple shows in one day, like, I mean, there's just no rest for you guys to do the 211 shows, meetings.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  Speeches.

• 25:00Tom Bilyeu?

  In the single year, as much driving as you guys have to do.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:05Tom Bilyeu?

  When you said that it was the equivalent of twice around the earth, you really get a sense of like, how far you guys are going in such a short period of time. And it's really quite inhuman, frankly. And what I loved is I heard you guys talking in another interview where your wife said, "I wasn't trying to check the guy when she took his keys. I wasn't trying to check him or like, you know, get in his face about it." And the interviewer said, "Sometimes that's the best way to check somebody." You know, to your point about leadership. You lead by example. It's not like you're trying to make some big statement. It's just, well, in my worldview, we are getting there. There, like, that's not even an option to not go. So, once you take that off the table, we'll eat when we eat. No judgment, right? Like, but I am gonna take the keys and I'm gonna drive.

• 25:47Tom Bilyeu?

  And that's one of the things that I find so fascinating about your story. And one thing, reading your book, that really hit me, was when you were talking about your mom. And she goes from the nice, middle-class existence to being the peer of everybody. You guys lose everything. She doesn't miss a beat and she starts working as a maid for some of, essentially, her former peers. And she told you, "Never be afraid to start over."

• 26:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:14Tom Bilyeu?

  And, I don't even know your mom, and that hit me. And I can only imagine what you took from that. How has that echoed through your life?

• 26:23Speaker 01

  She led by example.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  I really believe what they did in their lives. My father, his work ethic, my mother's resiliency. I'm the beneficiary of all those things. I stand on their shoulders. And therefore, I can't be anything less than that. And, you know, you talk about the sort of inhumane nature of this tour, this effort. The situation out on the reservation is that crazy. It's that unknown to people how horrible the conditions are. Here in America. And how under the radar it is almost for everybody. The anomaly that it is for most everybody.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  How, how hard it, maybe it's almost akin to standing on a island where you're the only inhabitant, wanting to be rescued, or wanting somebody to come down and provide some assistance. And you keep saying, it's an island next to an airport. You know, everybody sees you, must be. But nobody's gonna come down and do anything about it. And yet, at the same time, you see all of this going out to all these other countries, and we're doing everything for everybody else. So, is it intentional? You know, this must be intentional. People must intentionally not be looking down to see that, because it's right here. And so, the tour was an effort to draw over and above and beyond the attention,

• 27:53Speaker 01

  not just from outside of Indian country, but for Indian country. Again, leading through example, I'm gonna make this an example of if some folks, I'm not a tribe, I don't have all that funding, I don't have all of these things. But if, if, you know, a couple, their family can go out and garner enough support to be able to execute and deploy and logistically do this whole effort, what is our bigger excuse to not do this? If, if a few people can make this happen, collectively, what could we do? And it was to really say that as well. And in order to say that, you have to be willing to do more. You have to be willing to take a stand and make a difference, almost on an epic scale, just sometimes to get people's attention.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  And I think that's really what it was about. But going back again, you know, to do something like that, to have the resiliency, to believe in yourself. Going to see my mom at a home where she was, you know, cleaning a toilet. To know that when I was going to school, she was cleaning those toilets to help pay the tuition for me to be able to go. And a lot of the kids there's parents were doctors or, you know, because she wanted me to have a better education. She wanted me to have a better chance.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  And, and also the things that I would have to do every Saturday to go work at this lady's house that helped pay the other part of my tuition.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  I learned nothing's free. Everything has a price, one way or the other that you have to pay for it. And understanding that early on and coming to terms with that helped me, I think,

• 29:39Speaker 01

  navigate my journey.

• 29:40Tom Bilyeu?

  You talk a lot about self-belief. How can people cultivate that?

• 29:47Tom Bilyeu?

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• 30:30Tom Bilyeu?

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• 30:51Speaker 01

  You know, it's interesting you say that because literally, one of the issues that I think that we're dealing with more in Indian country right now than ever before is knowing our value, knowing our worth. If you don't love you, you can't love anybody else. If you don't appreciate you, it's impossible to appreciate anybody. If you don't respect yourself, it's impossible to respect somebody else. And if you are absorbed with that, really what it is is hatred of self. And however you got there through trauma, or oppression, or you know, sort of genetic, historical trauma,

• 31:33Speaker 01

  it becomes a situation that can be so devastating, not just in the lives of individuals, but in communities. And we have that trauma, absolutely. One of the biggest challenges right now for us to really stand up and come together as a community, I believe, is the need for our people to realize their purpose and their value. And to come to terms with who we are, and the beauty of our culture, and the beauty of the life that we have. And that self-worth manifests and grows, and I think it's very contagious. And that's one of the things that sometimes people say, "Well, these are just words, or these are just things that you're saying,

• 32:16Speaker 01

  and don't put a very high price on motivation or inspiration." But if you don't have hope, if you don't believe that there's possibility for you, well then you do start to understand why we have the highest rates of suicide, why we have the highest college, the highest high school dropout rates, the lowest college attendance. You know, I think right now we have less than 1,000 tribally enrolled attorneys right now in 2017 in the United States. I think we have less than... 250 certified public accountants that are enrolled tribal members. You mean, you look at the doctors, look at, you, the whole scope begins to be almost unattainable.

• 33:00Tom Bilyeu?

  I know you and your wife have started talking about actually getting into filmmaking, being on the other side to tell stories. What, so when I put that in conjunction with helping anybody but Native Americans specifically, see a sense of self-worth, get a picture of what's possible. One, why do you think that filmmaking will be effective? Which is something my entire life is built around. And then, two, what are the kinds of stories? I know some of it is, we just want them to see people playing normal roles. A dad, regardless of the fact that he's Native American, right? But what's that other thing? Like, you talk a lot about the warrior spirit. Like, is there something, are there stories that you want to tell people that impart a certain, like, life code that you want people to internalize?

• 33:46Speaker 01

  You know, I think sharing stories, of course, in our culture is how things were passed down, how historical events were passed down, how we learned from each other. My grandfather, talking to me every day in the garden when I was working with him, is how I learned a lot about who I am today, and who he was, and who he is. I think when we look at these mediums that are more accessible and more viable than they've ever been before, you know, with, with access to reaching people, we have to be out there telling our story. We can't let other people tell our story for us and continue to not have the ownership of, of who we are. And I think we just have to do that. And again, hopefully that's leading by example,

• 34:28Speaker 01

  because we don't have all the access in the world to doing these things. But I know that it's meaningful. So at the end of it, at the end of the day, we start with, is it meaningful? Absolutely, that's meaningful. The power of, of our people, seeing somebody on TV, on film, playing a role that is just a, a person. That's just a, a story that they see that's there. The power of that can impact and change folks. Whole idea of what is possible.

• 35:01Tom Bilyeu?

  You've got such a big mission in front of you, and it's really amazing. And you've clearly got the willingness to put in all the hard work. But how do you think about failure? What do you teach your kids about failure? Do you see it as a teaching mechanism, something to be afraid of? Like, how do you conceptualize of that in your life?

• 35:18Speaker 01

  Failures are our greatest teachers.

• 35:22Speaker 01

  I don't think anybody that's endeavored to ever do anything didn't fail at some point in some aspect of what they were trying to do. We learn from it and we move forward.

• 35:34Tom Bilyeu?

  How do you keep it so your dad used to say that one of the things he'd gotten good at and he wanted you to get good at was not letting the the energy of a negative situation or confrontation to carry you away. So how do people in that moment of failure, which is usually really embarrassing and like when you're failing, like all the talk in the world, if you're caught up in the energy, it's just, it sucks so much, people just want to turn and run in the opposite direction. So how did you learn not to get caught up in that energy?

• 36:06Speaker 01

  We're people and we feel how people feel, meaning it hurts when people say bad things about us. It doesn't feel good when people don't believe in you. My dad always told me if something ever doesn't go the way that you've planned and you find yourself in that situation, don't panic. The most important thing you can do is stay calm, stay present. And I've always sort of likened, I can't remember what, you know, I think it was a Vietnam War film or some other film that I was watching one time. And this sergeant stood right up in the middle of this battle. And bullets are hitting branches and knocking trees down.

• 36:48Speaker 01

  You can hear him zipping by and he stands up and he says, hey, go over there, move up. Do you, you need to watch right over there. And the presence amidst all the chaos and destruction and calamity was what saved all of their lives. And I think that presence of mind and that being able to be calm, that you've laid a plan out, you've done what you've done that got you to this point. If something comes up that you didn't expect or that you didn't know was gonna come, your plan's not bad. It got you to where you are. Right now, you have to deal with what's in front of you. That doesn't mean run away. It doesn't mean stop and don't do anything. It means deal with it. Deal with what's in front of you.

• 37:33Speaker 01

  Move through it, move around it, move over it, move under it. But keep moving forward. Rectify the situation, regroup, and go.

• 37:41Tom Bilyeu?

  So I've got a somewhat ridiculous way of practicing this because I'm such a huge believer that you have to learn how to do that because I think naturally you're saying we're people, right? So naturally, I think people just kick over into the sympathetic nervous system, fight or flight. They freeze. Blood is literally leaving their prefrontal cortex. They're not able to process things. So I started playing first-person shooter video games as a way to practice because on the other end of that computer is a 14-year-old who wants to say horrible things about my mother. And I've got to, in that moment, learn like how to just literally not get caught up in the emotion, like literally not get caught up in the emotion, lower my heart rate, slow my breathing,

• 38:25Tom Bilyeu?

  like find that calm in the center of that storm. It's like in that moment, you have to go the opposite way of what your body's telling you. And learning to go the opposite way. So whether it's everything's heightened, you're panicking, like dude, I can't imagine testifying before Congress. Like I've worked pretty hard not to get like really nervous. That would freak me out. So your body wants to amp up, right? And you've got to find a way to bring it back down. So I'm looking at your son over there and I'm thinking, what are you telling him to do to practice that? Is it, hey, life is gonna present that and in that moment, don't think of it as a performance? Or are there things that you try to put, situations you try to put him in where he can practice going the opposite way of what his body wants?

• 39:11Tom Bilyeu?

  Like, how does he prepare now for what will happen tomorrow?

• 39:15Speaker 01

  As you were talking, one of the things my mom used to tell me also was run to the roar.

• 39:21Tom Bilyeu?

  I love that.

• 39:22Speaker 01

  Run to the roar.

• 39:25Tom Bilyeu?

  I love that that came from your mom. That's something you'd expect from a father.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, she was very, she would sit me down and she would talk to me about this and she would say,

• 39:39Speaker 01

  There's always gonna be hard times. And you just have to have belief in that where you are is where you're supposed to be. And by moving forward, the strength of your faith will unleash the power of the Creator in your life. And I've seen that happen so many different times. And I could keep going back to it. When you see that happen, when you see a man go out and talk to a storm and the storm goes away, you can't unsee that. You can't unknow that.

• 40:16Tom Bilyeu?

  What's something about entrepreneurship that you want to teach people? Because, man, it's so clear hearing the way that you talk, that there's so much entrepreneurial thinking woven through the way that you see the world, the way that you approach things.

• 40:31Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 40:31Tom Bilyeu?

  What do you think people would benefit from learning or understanding about being a real entrepreneur?

• 40:40Speaker 01

  It's the most rewarding, hardest, most beautiful, liberating journey you'll ever go on. And I don't know of anything much more fulfilling than to see a possibility or an opportunity when nobody else sees it maybe, or see a piece of it that's already existent and say, "Wow, I could do that." And then take that and breathe life into it through your hard work, your efforts, your passion, and see it not only help you, but help other people.

• 41:24Speaker 01

  There is nothing, there's nothing I can think of that's more rewarding than that. Every time somebody says to me, "When you came here on tour, you helped," or "I was thinking about killing myself, and when I heard what you said, it changed my life." Every bit of being...

• 41:43Speaker 01

  Day one, doing anything I was doing that led me ultimately to impact that person's life, everything has been worth it. The fact that there's kids in Germany that listen to my music and learn about Indian people, everything has been worth it. So I guess that's the most beautiful thing is that when you have the ability to do something that maybe other people haven't ever identified as a tangible, and you can help people see that, and then glean from it what it means to them, that's just the ultimate end result for me.

• 42:16Tom Bilyeu?

  And what are a few tools that you think will universally prepare people to actually be an entrepreneur? To not just talk about it, not just have the dream like you're saying, like what are some tools that people need to cultivate?

• 42:30Speaker 01

  Planning. Planning, I think absolutely, your confidence, you know, whatever you got to do to really continue to build your confidence and continue to craft the value that you bring to the table.

• 42:42Tom Bilyeu?

  Where do you think confidence comes from?

• 42:43Speaker 01

  I think confidence comes from doing, trying, failing, correcting, and then doing, trying, failing, correcting, doing, trying, failing. Or if it's not your own journey, and hopefully it's not, doing your work enough to look at what you're going to get involved in, or people around you, and identifying where other people are having a hard time, and correcting off of their mistakes. I mean, you don't wish anybody bad, and you don't want to see anybody fail, but if you can look at that situation and say, wow, I know that when I do X, I need to kind of be prepared to move right and take two steps forward, let me file that one.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  So being aware, being aware of whatever it is that you're going to get into, or whatever is passionate about you. But I think that you really have to understand that if it's your dream, and that you're moving forward to accomplish your dream, don't let anyone ever take that from you. Don't let anyone kill your passion about what it is that you feel innately is what you're supposed to do, what your journey is. That's yours. That's almost been ordained to you specifically, uniquely. That you may be the one person that's able to move that forward. Don't let anybody rob you of that. And it's gonna happen. People are going to doubt you. People are going to, and as you'd mentioned, you know, there's going to be people that just don't see it. They just don't get it. And, and it sucks. I mean, it's, it's hard to, to maintain that excitement.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  I think the, the other thing right there in that window is, you know, absolutely.

• 44:18Speaker 01

  Be about it if you expect other people to be about it. If you, if you want people to be a hundred percent excited, understand you gotta be a hundred and fifty percent excited about it. Nobody is ever gonna be more excited about what you're doing than you. So you better be on fire about it. If you walk in with your head down, or you don't feel that this is something that you really, at the core of your being, believe in, then you're not ready to walk in there yet. Don't go until you know it better than one, than no one else. That you know it better than anybody else on this earth. That's vital. You have to know what you're doing. You have to know every bit of it to the best of your ability so that you can talk about it. Because the minute they see you flinch, the minute that they see you not know, or you start to make it up as you go,

• 45:02Speaker 01

  I think that's where people start to lose, lose confidence in who you are, what you're about, what you're talking about. You have to be able to, to walk in and, and, and, and I think that all comes with knowing your service, your product, what it is that you're doing, your story better than anybody else could ever tell it, and being on fire about it. And you don't have to, if, if it's really your passion, it's really that, it's just gonna come out of you. But a lot of people maybe have to work on that skill more than other people, right? And I think that, you know, get in the mirror, get your wife, get your uncle, get anybody that'll let you listen, that'll let you talk to them and listen, and, and maybe help tell you, hey, look, I, I didn't really believe that too much, you know, maybe. Well, where did, where did you stop believing me?

• 45:46Speaker 01

  What did I not communicate enough? And just go through the iterations. Do the work, practice, whatever it is that you've got that, that you wanna communicate to folks. And I think that's, that's a communication. You know, I think back about what my dad said, and I said it earlier. Be able to speak, be able to, to know what you're trying to say. And if you can communicate to people, if you can speak and talk. About your idea, you know, that's the key to it all. You've got to be able to express and and I think there's so many things people will find as they begin that journey that they didn't even know they had. But you've got to take one step and I think that's where people fail is they don't start.

• 46:24Tom Bilyeu?

  Wow, yes, that that I will agree with you on. What what would you say, I love when people have kids because it really like clarifies what their beliefs are. What would you say if your son came to you and said, I just don't know how to start?

• 46:40Speaker 01

  If my son came to me and said, I don't know how to start, I would say to him,

• 46:47Speaker 01

  do you really believe in what it is that you're trying to start to do?

• 46:50Tom Bilyeu?

  Yes.

• 46:51Speaker 01

  If you've got to start there, do you believe in it? Does do you know why you're doing it? Does it have purpose and meaningfulness to you? Because if he's saying he can't attach to it or he can't find the the place to to move forward, to me, he hasn't found the thing yet.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  I would encourage him to keep looking and and searching for it.

• 47:15Tom Bilyeu?

  Before I ask my last question, where can these guys find you online?

• 47:18Speaker 01

  They can find us online at lightfoot, L I T E F O O T dot com. And of course, all the social media, Facebook, Instagram. My wife would kill me if I don't say Snapchat. I do my best on Snapchat. But yeah, we Twitter, everything, so yeah.

• 47:40Tom Bilyeu?

  All right.

• 47:41Speaker 01

  YouTube, I'd be remiss if I didn't say that.

• 47:42Tom Bilyeu?

  Yes, true.

• 47:43Speaker 01

  Youtube dot com slash.

• 47:44Tom Bilyeu?

  I've rocked many of your YouTube videos.

• 47:47Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 47:48Tom Bilyeu?

  So what's the impact that you want to have on the world?

• 47:52Speaker 01

  The impact that I would want to have on the world would be for people to understand that their life is not a mistake, that their life isn't just because, that they've been put here for a reason, that we're all here for a purpose. None of us were put here to do nothing. And I would never want to see anybody come here for the window of time that we're here, which ultimately is very short, no matter how long we live.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  And not find that.

• 48:26Speaker 01

  Because really, for me, life is contained within that. Living is contained within that.

• 48:34Speaker 01

  And through that, I would want them to understand that we're here to live, not survive. I think too many people survive every single day. And not enough of us live. And I wouldn't want anybody to come here and do an 80-year bid and just survive.

• 48:53Speaker 01

  We should all spend every second that we possibly can living.

• 49:00Tom Bilyeu?

  Thank you so much for being on the show. That was amazing.

• 49:03Speaker 01

  Thank you, thank you.

• 49:04Tom Bilyeu?

  Guys, you want to talk about somebody that has definitely lived their life. And however much time this man ends up getting, every bit of it has been used wisely. This is a story, an incredible story of hard work, perseverance. He once said, "If you're going to ask somebody to do 10 pushups, you better do 50." And that, I think, really sums up what he's learned, the incredible way that he's drawn from his family, the lessons that he's learned from hardship. Seeing his mother in failure, only thinking about moving forward and reinventing herself. And whether people were judging her or judging him, her encouragement was always to never let anybody else define you and what you're capable of. And a story that we didn't even get to, when he goes back, he used to be a busboy.

• 49:47Tom Bilyeu?

  He meets another kid who's busboying and sees him being mistreated by other people. Goes up to him, gives him a $100 tip and tells the kid, "Don't ever let anybody else define you and give you your worth." That's something you have to define for yourself. And that is something that goes through everything that he puts out, all the content that he creates, whether it's the raps, which go listen to, they're amazing. Especially if you grew up when I grew up, it is amazing to hear the lyrical prowess, to hear the things that he's talking about, to hear somebody that was political long before many people, if anybody was being political. It's really, really fascinating. Hard work gets you an outcome. This man's life is absolutely proof of that.

• 50:28Tom Bilyeu?

  And just to see how far he's gone, from rapping about the reservation all the way to lobbying on Capitol Hill. It is an absolutely breathtaking journey that I think you guys will learn a lot. So, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Thank you so much.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 50:54Tom Bilyeu?

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• 51:39Tom Bilyeu?

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