The Untold Story of How a Navy Officer Built a NASCAR Career from Nothing

With NASCAR season in full throttle, I sat down with an incredible competitor and unstoppable force: Jesse Iwuji.

From Division 1 football to serving as a Navy officer to racing at 200MPH in NASCAR, Jesse’s path proves one thing—mental toughness wins.

He didn’t grow up in a racing family. He didn’t have a trust fund. And when the money ran out? He refused to quit. Jesse side-hustled, networked, and built businesses to keep his dream alive.

Jesse’s story isn’t just about racing—it’s about chasing your dream even when the world says no.

📲 Connect with Jesse:
🔹 Instagram: @JesseIwuji
🔹 LinkedIn: Jesse Iwuji
🔹 Website: www.jesseiwuji.com

Follow me for more:
🌐 Website: www.toughness.com
📸 Instagram: @paddysgram
💼 LinkedIn: Paddy Steinfort
✖️ X (Twitter): @paddysx

 

 

Transcript:

[00:00:39] Paddy Steinfort: Welcome to the Toughness podcast I'm your host Patty Steinfort and we have a special guest today who has excelled in not one, not two, but three different industries, areas, uh, of achievement have gone from being, uh, playing college football in division one to being an officer or a lieutenant specifically in the Navy and now competing in the national series in NASCAR.

Welcome to the show, Jesse Uwuji. 

[00:01:03] Jesse Iwuji: Thanks. Thanks for having me on the show today. 

[00:01:05] Paddy Steinfort: Now, uh, I mentioned three of the hills that you have climbed and are still climbing in some instances, uh, there. It's quite a varied journey, right? And I want to start off with something that I read in your background notes that was really interesting to me and I think will be a good diving off point is a quote that you love from Les Brown that talks about, I'm going to butcher the phrase here, you might be able to fix it for me, but that someone's perception of you doesn't have to be the actual reality.

Is that what, what has allowed you to freedom to be like, you know what, I've done this great thing and now I'm going to go do this thing. Like you've changed and evolved multiple times. Is that, has that been an early part of your identity? 

[00:01:41] Jesse Iwuji: That, yeah, it was really, really huge. Actually, one of my friends sent me a video back in 2015.

It was like just about kind of the beginning of this whole journey of me trying to rise up the ranks of NASCAR. And in this video, he knew, I don't know how, but at that particular time, he somehow got the sense. That I was struggling to try to figure this thing out, how to figure out how to get funding, how to just get through the ladder, because I knew where I wanted to be, I knew where I wanted to go, but I didn't have what I needed to actually make it happen, so for some reason he was sensing it that day, I don't know how, because, I mean, I didn't see him that day, he just, you know, he sensed it.

So he got on Facebook and he sent me the video and in the video, that's when I first heard the, the phrase and it was, uh, someone's opinion of you does not have to become your reality. And when I heard that, it just clicked and I was like, you know what, just because there's all these people out there who feel like there's no end world, I'll be able to make it through this journey.

There's no way I'll be able to eventually race, you know, at the top levels of NASCAR. There's just no way it could happen because. You know, I don't come from a racing family. I don't come from a wealthy family. I don't come from this. I don't come from that. I don't look this way. Look that way. Like all these people were saying all these things on why I couldn't, but I wasn't going to let their opinion of me, their opinion of my journey, um, become my reality.

I knew I was going to get to where I wanted to go because I had already had the vision. I had already seen myself become what I needed to become. And because I already saw it, that means the deal is done. I just need to grind and stay strong enough, long enough. To get to the end, 

[00:03:08] Paddy Steinfort: super, super cool. And it reminds me a lot of time when I'm talking to people who are, uh, world-level performers like yourself, they talk about that sort of a moment, which is a crystallization, almost of what you already knew.

Like you, you've obviously, you went through a childhood, uh, playing high school football in Texas, which is a big deal, right? Yeah. Not everyone who plays high school football in Texas goes on to play at a division one school and college. And you achieve that not everyone who becomes, who even applies to go to the Navy ends up being a lieutenant and clearly not everyone who sets out to be in racing cars ends up driving the national series in NASCAR. 

And so is this something that you feel was inherent, like it was taught to you by your parents or you picked it up in childhood or it was, it was that moment that someone sent you that quote that it really locked in for you. 

[00:03:57] Jesse Iwuji: I think is that I had already known it, I think prior to that. I just I never had heard it being, um, I guess verbalized in that way.

Um, and when I heard him say it, that's when it clicks. And I was like, okay, this is why I was able to go achieve this, achieve that. Because in any instance in my life where I've had to go try to achieve something that might have seemed like a lofty goal, I've been able to achieve it because I didn't let other people's opinions of me become a reality.

When I was playing football in high school, Yes, I eventually got recruited and played college football, but I wasn't like a high school football star from the day I came into high school. I wasn't good at football at all to begin with. Like when I first started high school football, I was horrible. I mean, I had some speed, I could run, but that was about it.

I couldn't catch a football to save my life. I didn't know a lot about football. I just wasn't good at football. So for me to go from not being great that all in ninth grade to by my senior year of high school, finally being good, starting on the team, and eventually getting recruited. Um, it took me getting past all the negativity in those first few years.

All the people who told me that I sucked at football, the people who told me I would never amount to anything in football, I had to get past that. But once again, I was never letting anyone's opinion of me become my reality. 

[00:05:05] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah. Isn't that funny? Like a lot of people talk about along the journey, the people that tell you, you suck at something that you end up being really good at, but early on, they might catch a quick snapshot of it, or maybe even yourself, you might say that to yourself sometimes, right?

Is that one of the questions that we ask a lot on the show? Is for your, the guests definition of toughness. And the cool thing is you might have three or four different ones because of all these different domains you've been in football, which is considered a fairly tough environment, Navy, which is considered a ridiculously tough environment, NASCAR, which is tough as well.

Like, do you look at toughness as like, it's the same across all those things or is, does toughness mean a different thing in each of those areas? 

[00:05:49] Jesse Iwuji: Yeah, for me, um, it definitely is the same. Toughness is just toughness in general. It's it's all mental. Um, at the end of the day, you have to have a lot of mental toughness anytime you're going after any big goals, any big dreams, because throughout the journey, it's going to be dark.

And that's what some people don't understand. I think I'm gonna set this huge goal. I'm gonna go after whatever it is. I'm gonna achieve this. I'm gonna start this. I'm gonna do that become whatever Yeah. And, uh, maybe they've never gone through a journey to try to achieve something big. Then they immediately start going through this tunnel, the tunnel of life, to try to get there.

And it's dark. And it's very, very dark. It is actually pitch-black the entire way. That light at the end of the tunnel, it is definitely there, but you cannot see it at all. You know, some people expect, okay, I know I'm going to go into this tunnel, and it's going to be dark, and it's going to be tough. But you know, light's going to be there.

Like, I'm still going to see it at the very end. You're not going to see it. And what happens is people aren't mentally tough enough to get through that darkness throughout that time, their darkness, even knows how long it's going to be, it could last a day, it could last a week, it could last a year, five years, 10 years, you never know.

Um, but you have to continue to push forward. You have to have the mental toughness to understand that, like, I have to have faith throughout this time, like as dark as it is, I got to keep going because eventually light will show up and it might not show up to the final inch of this tunnel, but you have to have faith and be mentally tough to get through that entire time.

[00:07:12] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah. I mean, you mentioned there that having faith or particularly you said something a bit earlier of I'd already seen the vision, so I know it's going to happen. I just got to get down and do the work. Right. And it sounds like you saw the light before you got in the tunnel and you get in the tunnel and it goes, everything goes black and you just got to hang on until that light comes back.

[00:07:30] Paddy Steinfort: Right. Is that what 

[00:07:31] Jesse Iwuji: you're talking about? That, that is the faith part of it. Yes. And that's exactly it right there because Initially, like the reason why any of us go after anything in life is because we envisioned it. We envisioned ourselves becoming a race car driver, becoming a business owner, becoming whatever it is, we already saw it.

That's why we saw we don't just blindly just go start doing something and all of a sudden things happen. Sometimes that happens. But usually, it's because we saw something like, Oh, I saw myself inventing the first airplane. So I'm gonna start, you know, working on it. That's where it starts. But the thing is, all of a sudden we get into that tunnel, and even though we had already saw it, we forget that we saw it, and it's super dark, and then people quit, and it's like, why would you quit?

You already saw that it's done, like, it is there, it's, just have, just believe, believe that you will get to the edge, just believe it's still gonna be there, um, and that's the tough part of the journey, but that's why only a few, you know, succeed at what they do. 

[00:08:25] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah, I mean, for you, that, that's a particularly vivid [00:08:30] example, if you look at the lineup before any race in nascar, there are not many black guys in that lineup, right? There is only two, as as I understand it, two African 

[00:08:38] Jesse Iwuji: Americans, two in the entire national series two, our entire, so in, in, in my NASCAR truck series and Xfinity series, that race in really is only me.

And then in the Cup series at the top level is Bubba Wallace. 

[00:08:49] Paddy Steinfort: Right? And so it, it's even more challenging to how, how do you look at that as a sport in the first place? And there's no representation for you because Bubba haven't made it, I think, for the first time you were looking at racing cars, right?

And so, how do you look at that and think, yeah, that's something I'm going to do. Like, that's, that's kind of like a weird out there dream. How did that come to be for you? 

[00:09:11] Jesse Iwuji: When I first looked at it, you know, I knew that it was, I think at that time when I first started getting into racing, it was only Bubba Wallace.

Um, at least at the national level. And then there was a couple of the African American drivers who racing like late model series and last car K and N series at that time. But then they just nothing ever went like it never went anywhere after that. Like they never made it to like the NASCAR truck series and Xfinity series.

[00:09:36] Jesse Iwuji: So for me, I figured, you know, I'm gonna keep on going forward no matter what. And yeah, I mean, it is definitely different being like one of two. But you know, it's part of it is just how it is. Um I, I think in racing in general, just it, it's tough because, uh, a lot of it isn't just completely on, like how good a race car driver you is.

A lot, a lot of it is, um, funding. You gotta make sure you find the right funding to get in a race car because it just, it costs money, tires, fuel, people transporting, travel, all that stuff costs money. So what ends up happening is a lot of people can't find it and all of a sudden that's where their journey ends.

And, um, for me, I just. Refuse to not stop looking 

[00:10:13] Paddy Steinfort: nice. So, so that then gives us an interesting metaphor. Almost is that the situation you find yourself in as only one of two African American drivers, it's obviously a different situation and being a black man in a sport that isn't very diverse. It could, people could look at it as one of two ways, or it could be both.

Does that come with extra weight in your car as you're trying to get to where you're going to go, where you're trying to go, or is it extra fuel or is it both? 

[00:10:40] Jesse Iwuji: Yeah, um, it can sometimes be some extra weight, but it can be extra fuel. I try not to let it be part of my thought process at all. I try to just do my thing and because I, once again, I know where I'm going.

I know what I'm going to achieve. I just got to get there. I just, the tough part is I don't know what's in between. So I don't know all the challenges in between where things are going to go well or not go well or go well some days and not, it's just, there's so much to happen. So, and that's the tough part throughout the whole journey.

When I think I'm going to have a good day, I don't, when I think I'm going to have a bad day, I have a great day. Like it's, you know, a lot, a lot of different things happening with a single day, even off the track, on the track. Um, so for me, I try not to let you just the, the race side of it, um, carry any more burden because there's enough burden on, on everything else that I try not to add, add more fuel to that.

[00:11:26] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah, for sure. For sure. I mean, and you mentioned there that you don't know what's going to happen. And sometimes you think you're going to have a great day and you have a shit one and you think you're going to have a shit day and you have a great day. And let's talk about that. There's a lot of challenges obviously in racing, as you mentioned, without anything involved in race, just purely getting in the car and getting it going and competing and winning.

What would you say when you've had those days where you thought you were going to be good, but you weren't, what were the things you learned out of those days? Or is there an example for you that stands out where it's like, this is the hardest thing I've had to deal with so far? 

[00:11:57] Jesse Iwuji: Yeah, um, for me, uh, on those days, you know, the, the learning I take from it is, hey, like, what I, what I try to look at is, okay, what, what, what did go right that day?

And what, what went wrong? And then from there, when you can take what went wrong, you gotta try to, you know, construct from there and figure out, okay, what can I do to fix that? What can I do to get better? What can I do to prepare a little bit better? So that doesn't happen because, throughout this journey, this can be things that, you know, this never seen before things that will happen to me that I've never experienced.

And the best thing to do is just to learn from that stuff. So it doesn't happen again because it's a new journey. This isn't something I've been doing. You know, for 20, 30 years of my life. So there's just going to be a lot of new things. And as you continue to rise, the ranks up the ranks of NASCAR, I'm going to be experiencing new places, new tracks, new ways to drive.

Like there's so many different things happening that it's just a constant evolving, um, journey. So through the evolving, I have to evolve too. And through, and by me evolving, sometimes I just have to make mistakes. Sometimes things, this won't go the way I want, but that's because. You know, it's new, it's new, it's fresh and I'm learning, but then the next time I come around, hopefully it's better.

And maybe the next time I come around, maybe it's not, but you can still learn from it and keep a thing to push forward. But that's part of the whole thing. Like I always tell people. When you're going through a journey, you know, life rewards, those who stay strong enough, long enough 

[00:13:17] Paddy Steinfort: like that life rewards, those who stay strong enough, long enough, I'm, I'm going to probably steal that.

Yeah, I will, I will definitely quote you on a lot of research. I'm not sure if you've heard of, uh, I think Malcolm Gladwell popularized it, but the guy behind it was the guy called Anders Ericsson talking about deliberate practice. And the idea of 10, 000 hours is 

become a master at something. So I mean, like.

[00:13:38] Paddy Steinfort: For 2015 till now, I'm assuming that you haven't reached 10, 000 hours yet. 

[00:13:43] Jesse Iwuji: No, no, no, I don't think I've definitely not 10, 000 hours on track. That's for sure. Um, but, uh, you know, I think between my racing simulator and, and on track time, it's tough, but definitely not 10, 000 hours. It takes 10, 000 hours.

[00:13:57] Jesse Iwuji: You're that's, you're looking at 10 to 15 years worth of a lot of practice. Yeah. 

[00:14:02] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah. And, and so that's exciting and daunting at the same time. Right. But one of the things that he says in his research that picks up. What people pick up by doing this practice is learning how to deal with when people don't have their A game.

Like, and I always use the Michael Jordan flu game as the best example, the very vivid example of someone turns up, they feel like shit and they still manage to go and perform well. You kind of alluded to it a second ago where some days you feel like you're going to go well and you don't. And sometimes it's the other.

You feel terrible. You're like not in it. And then you just find a way to make it happen. Right. Have you had experiences like that where you've actually recognized, maybe not the first time because you don't know you're in the dark tunnel with the U-turn coming up. But the second time you're like, Oh, I've seen this before.

And I got through this by, I'm just going to shrink. I call it shrinking your thinking. I'm just going to focus on doing these one or two things. Like there's a lot of pressure. Your life is literally on the line while you're doing a lot of this stuff. So how do you shrink your focus to like just these two or three things that you can manage when things aren't going that well?

What is it that you focus on? 

[00:15:03] Jesse Iwuji: So for me, what I do is I remember that, uh, setbacks are setups or the nominal comebacks. So with that being said, what I, what I do is when, when setbacks are happening, I'd start like, you know, at first naturally as a human being, you know, you get upset, you're like, Oh my God, what's going on.

How am I going to get through this? But then, um, then I remember, okay, these setbacks are setups for comebacks, like phenomenal comebacks. So even though these setbacks are happening right now, the phenomenal comeback is coming up soon. Something really good is coming up soon. So now that comes that, that a whole part of staying strong enough, long enough.

Comes into effect. Okay, get through it. Because a lot of times when people start going through these setbacks, they don't think about the comeback that's about to happen on the back end of it. And all of a sudden they quit in the middle of it. So then everybody got there. And then at the end of it, when they tell people the story of why they quit, they're like, Oh, yeah.

You know, this happened, this happened, this happened, I lost all this, I lost that, I lost whatever, and that's what I had to call it quits. Not realizing that even though they were losing this, and losing that, and losing the battle, it didn't mean that the war was lost. It just mean the battles were just not going their way, but the win, like the end of the war was coming, it's just you had to stay strong enough, long enough to get to the end.

You cannot quit in the middle of the process. It'd be like You know, turning off your, your, your washing machine right when it hits a moment where it's pausing for a bit during a wash, all of a sudden your stuff is still wet. Like, why'd you quit? Like, just let it go through the whole process. It's going to get to the end.

[00:16:27] Paddy Steinfort: That's a great analogy. Very simple analogy, but it's one all of us, all of us have done, I'm sure have pulled out the washing too early. 

[00:16:34] Jesse Iwuji: Yeah, or the dryer, the dryer too. Actually, the dryer is even more of a good. The worst. Yeah, they're like, oh, because, because, because you think it's a one thing. You're like, oh, yeah, no, it's all hot in there.

It's all good. And then, but it's not, like, just let it go through the. And I 

[00:16:46] Paddy Steinfort: pull it out and it's like, kind of a bit damp. You're like, oh, is that enough? Do I do it here? 

[00:16:50] Jesse Iwuji: Then you hate yourself the rest of life because you're like, oh my god, this sounds like crap. It feels like crap. Why didn't I just wait?

You know, why did I just wait 

[00:16:57] Paddy Steinfort: 10 minutes? All it was going to be was 10 minutes, 10 minutes. 

[00:16:59] Jesse Iwuji: And at least on a dryer, you can see the timer on this life journey. You can't see that timer. So that's a faith part, faith that the timer is, it's, you're going to get there just to stay with it. And people ask how long are you supposed to stay with it?

How many, you know, and I'm like, as long as necessary. Okay. How many reps do I got to do as many as necessary? Okay. How much money do I need to find as much as you can? Like you just. Like, there is no, there's no number. You just keep going. Like, that's the thing. Like, there is no finite number. Just keep going.

[00:17:31] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah, yeah. I had a, I had a mentor when I was a professional athlete many, many years ago, I had a mentor who I was talking to him, like, you know, how many, what should my stats be? What's, what's going to make sure that I get it? And he's like, you leave it beyond doubt. You don't get the number, you double the number, like just leave him with no doubt, no excuses, no room for error.

Um, and that, I'll circle back to that funding thing that I think you hinted at there a second ago. I'm interested though, you mentioned the setbacks, the setups, the phenomenal comebacks. What's the biggest setback you've had so far? There may be more in the future, but so far, what have you, where has that actually come true for you? It's turned into a comeback. 

[00:18:09] Jesse Iwuji: Yeah. So, um, some of my biggest setbacks, um, well, on the funding side, I've definitely had setbacks. And I would, I would say on that side of it, there's been times throughout this journey, a couple of times where, you know, I completely ran out of funding, completely ran out of money, didn't have anything else left to go, had no clue of how I was going to get through the rest of the season, through the rest of the year, or getting to, or even go into the following year, I had no clue because I literally had nothing.

I was like in the hole, sometimes thousands of dollars in the hole. Once again, I didn't quit because a lot of these times I was in such bad shape. That I like most people majority 99 percent of people would have quit and I didn't I didn't I decided, you know what, like, once again, this is a setback like the comeback is coming.

I stayed with it, but because I had always been grinding hard networking, right? Um, working hard, like all that energy I was putting into this whole thing, eventually going to give back. So, you know, outside of racing, you know, I started some businesses. Um, one of my businesses is where I host drag racing events.

And these events, um, you know, invite people to the track, spectators come, people come race their cars, and I'm able to make money off of all the ticket sales. Well, I had an upcoming event at one point, right after one of these huge setbacks where I ran out of racing money, I had nothing, um, I had one of these events coming up and it actually made enough money to cover what I need to cover to get through the rest of the year.

Um, and, and, and it's, once again, it's like I stayed strong and I could have quit, I could have quit on the racing and be like, you know what, I can't do this anymore. I don't have anything else, but I didn't, I stayed with it. And eventually that camp, that comeback came like literally right when I needed it, which was right when I had nothing else left.

It came, but I didn't quit. I let the whole thing play through and we got through it. 

[00:19:53] Paddy Steinfort: That's a, that's a great, awesome, real, I'm sure there are many people listening who have been in a similar situation where it's like, I just got to hang on one more day, right? One more event. You've used a bit of language there that I want to touch on that, that references.

I think a mindset that I assume you develop in training at the, at the Naval Academy where. You said you may not win the battle, but you can still win the war, being able to continue your campaign. So a lot of language there around what, what is military and, and war language, how much of your training, your time in the Navy carries over to the way you approach, maybe not just NASCAR, but your life now, like how much did that inform your approach once you even left the Navy or you're still in the reserves or once you stop, you went on tour, you actually served in active duty. Once that was finished, how much does that play into how you go about things now?

[00:20:45] Jesse Iwuji: Yeah, a lot of it still plays an effect right now. Um, yeah, now I'm in the Navy reserves. I was active duty for about seven years. Went on two different deployments. Um, one of the first things we learned at the Navy or at the Naval Academy, uh, when I first got to school there was that there's this little small book and I can't remember how many pages it is very, very small, but it's called a message to Garcia. And the whole thing about that book is it talks about, it was a fellow and I can't remember his army Marine Corps. I can't remember, but the fellow who needed to deliver a message to someone else in the middle of war battle or something. And whoever had given this message basically gave him this message was like, Hey, this message needs to get to Garcia and then the person you need to deliver it like at that point was like, you know, okay, who is Garcia?

Where's Garcia? How do I get this to them? And basically who had the person that given them the message was like, figure it out. And that was it. That was it. This person had to get this very important message to someone else and had no, uh, directions on where to go, what to do, who it was, but he had to figure it out.

And that's what the book was about, which is being resourceful. Like, you're not going to be given all the answers. You're not going to be given everything you need. You just got to be resourceful and figure it out. And we learned that very, very early. Happy Naval Academy. And that's what kind of helped me get through, uh, the beginning parts of my journey of, uh, trying to build my own business, trying to see a race in NASCAR was I had to just figure it out.

Like, like life, the world isn't going to give you all the answers. Um, some people are going to help you. Some people are going to be there. Some people will help support, but don't expect all the answers. Expect that nothing is going to be there for you. No one's going to be there for you. Expect. That you're not going to have at all, but as long as you can stay resourceful, you can go find the answers.

You can start learning how to ask the right questions. You can learn how to build relationships. You will get the information you need. You will get the resources you need, but you just gotta, you know, you gotta, you gotta be resourceful. And that's what that thing is. That book's about. I learned so much from it.

Um, and now, you know, I'm using that resourcefulness, uh, throughout everything I do, because I know once you're going through this whole journey, you know, you're gonna have a lot of battles. Some battles will win, some battles will lose, but at the end of the day, you win a war as long as you have the right vision and stay resourceful, you grind and stay strong enough.

[00:22:56] Paddy Steinfort: I want to highlight three things you said there, though, that I actually touched on a question I was going to ask around what is being resourceful because a lot of people will write to me or will talk to other people that I interview and say, Hey, I want to do what you do. How, how did you get there? How do I get to where you are?

And I'm like, yo, you don't want to travel the journey that I've traveled. It's not a normal journey. It had many U-turns and, and I fell off a cliff once and like, you don't want to do that. And also you're not me and you're not coming from where I came from and it's rare. It's going to be different for everyone.

So. Often the feedback is be resourceful, but I love the way you in the midst of that. You said three things that were, if you're saying be resourceful, here's what it means. It means find the answers, like at least go looking for and know what you're looking for. Number two, ask the right questions. And number three, and I'll probably butchered the order here, but build relationships, and that might be one of the most important ones because that'll help you do the other two, right?

Yeah. Who for you is like, when you look back at your journey to where you are currently, at least. Do you look at and point to as maybe not even journey where you're like, that person was really crucial for me, or even if you don't want to name a person, just describing the relationship that developed.

[00:24:06] Jesse Iwuji: Yeah, it's quite a few. It's not just, not just one. Um, uh, quite, even just my, my agent right now, Matt Castile, you know, he's been super, super cool. Very, very important part of this whole journey. Very resourceful person. Um, very well connected. A lot of great relationships. Um, he knows a lot and together we're able to bounce different ideas off each other and we're always in sync what we do.

Like, I always know that when he's out there speaking for me and doing different things that he's, you represent me in the right way. But he's also able to use his connections to continue to kind of push this journey forward. You know, even people just before him, I have some friends who have always just kind of been people that I can always bounce ideas off of.

Or even listen to them about their journey so that I can learn different things from it. One of my friends, Ryan, Ryan Hogan, he's he owns a business now that's grown so much. He started it back in 2016. It's now grown to where it has revenue of over 50 million, and he's been doing well with that. But we Just jump on the phone call with each other randomly and just talk.

I tell him about what's going on in my life. He tells me about what's going on in his life, what's happening with the business, where they're going, different things they're doing, and even though his stuff has nothing to do with what I'm doing, I can still learn from it and I can ask the right questions so I can take little tidbits of just strategies he does and apply it to things I'm doing right now to help it.

But it's just building those relationships where you have people who are like-minded, who are trying to succeed in life. We're trying to elevate their life when you surround yourself with those good people in your group around you is always trying to elevate like you're gonna elevate to. You can't surround yourself with people who are like going down the elevator.

No, you gotta be with people that are trying to go up. They don't want to stay at the same level. They're trying to go up because that like-minded type group, you're all gonna rise together. And it just makes it very helpful. Um, and helps the likelihood that your journey is going to be successful. It increases that a lot.

[00:25:56] Paddy Steinfort: Sure. I was just talking with a fellow performance coach the other day talking about different ventures that we've got going on. And, and I think this is the best way to summarize that is that all boats rise with the tide. Yeah. One of us is sitting here and you see them go up. That's awesome. Cause we're all going to go up with it if we're, if we're all in the same pool.

So really cool. That's a motto I share there. And with that in mind, what do you hope for the future? When you look at either your future in racing or even just the work that you do outside of racing as well, what are you hoping to achieve with your career? All the other stuff that you do outside of that.

[00:26:30] Jesse Iwuji: Yeah. So, uh, for me, um, you know, the, the ultimate goal on the racing side of things is to make it to the NASCAR cup series and race full time, uh, in the NASCAR cup series, eventually compete for wins and eventually a championship. That's, that's the goal as far as the business stuff. The to you to grow the businesses that I have right now, I'm doing the drag racing events.

I have e sports business. Now we're putting on sim racing events. I have real estate investing where I'm investing in different properties. Um, also when I have a trucking company right now where we have semi trucks on the road hauling mainly Amazon goods. Um, and I'm trying to grow all that stuff and who knows, maybe other business ventures jump into my plate of business stuff, uh, over the future, but I'm trying to grow all that stuff.

Um, and, uh, you know, with, with the racing side of the business side, when I elevate it to the level that I want it to be, it'll just make everything else in life better. 

[00:27:20] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah. I should put business model as your force. College football, Navy, NASCAR, and entrepreneur, right? Yeah. Make sure I add that on. Uh, this is absolutely not really that relevant or maybe it is to the topic of the show, but pure curiosity.

You mentioned the sim racing thing. I saw that you won an event. I think it was a recent, it was an electronic racing event. Yeah, 

[00:27:42] Jesse Iwuji: we, uh, we, uh, they did a NASCAR, did a fan vote to vote one more person into the NASCAR cup series. Um, yeah, they're pro invitational sim racing event and the fans voted me in.

Which was awesome. So I got to compete in the event. I ran well, ended up finishing mid pack, but I was happy because I mean, it's like I'm racing against NASCAR Cup series guys, the best of the best. So to finish right in the middle of the field, I was happy. I ran second place for a good portion of the race.

Um, so it was fun. I had a really good time. Everyone loved every bit about it. 

[00:28:14] Paddy Steinfort: So my question on that is how different is the experience for you when you're in a sim versus when you're in the thing that's actually going around that could crash into a wall and cause damage. Like different physiological experience, physiological and mental experience.

Tell us what's same and what's different. 

[00:28:30] Jesse Iwuji: Yeah, you definitely don't take as many risks in the real world as you do on the sim, but it's good to get to a point where you can be as risky in the real world as you are on a sim. It's good to get to that point. It's just tough. Um, there is, there's no reset button in real life and damage costs money in real life.

Unlike on the sim, I can hit the reset button. So yeah, that's the only tough part. 

[00:28:50] Paddy Steinfort: Yeah. Is there a particular point that you can look back in your journey that you look at as your highlight so far? So some of you are looking at you, you look back at because. We had someone on the show who was totally not from sport or the military, they were in trading and, but they talked about this really important element of most of their emotion and therefore our decisions are based on this thing called anticipatory affect, which basically means that feeling that I think I'm going to feel if I do this thing.

And so she would argue that you continuing to put yourself in situations where there's no reset button and you could cost a lot of money and physical damage, you're still, even though that risk and that fear is there, you're actually chasing like this thing at the end of it is going to give me that feeling again, that feeling that I had when either I got on the podium first time, or the first time I got in a car, like, what is it for you that drives you that actually goes over and above any of the risks that are involved because you just want that feeling again.

[00:29:42] Jesse Iwuji: Yeah, for me, um, the, the feeling is accomplishing that in dream and that in dream was my vision initially that I had, which was, I saw myself the two, two business, the first one was walking out. So driver introductions with thousands of thousands of fans getting ready to run a NASCAR cup series race. And that was the first vision.

The other vision was winning a race. It's staying on top of the car and saluting the entire crowd. Um, this dream so happens to be at Daytona. So some reason that's where it's gonna happen. That's it. Don't stand on top of the car and salute the whole crowd. And I see myself winning this race, one of the biggest races out there.

And that that's kind of where it's at. Like, that's where I see it. So that's what pushes me to continue to jump in, you know, life-threatening situations. You know, racing 200 miles per hour against people, you know, uh, I, I continue to do all the stuff we're doing sometimes not even having all the resources to do it, but still just try to make it happen, continue to do it, putting myself out there.

You know, we live in an internet age where there's a lot of, uh, keyboard warriors and trolls. You know, so when you don't do well, you know, there's always someone out there who has something to say about it and you really, the group of them, um, and you have to get past that, you know, you have to remember those people are just probably living in their mother's basement, you know, and probably have no life.

[00:30:59] Paddy Steinfort: That's a good way to reframe it. Yeah, I meant that dream is going to come true, right? Yeah, part of a journey. Jesse, we really appreciate your time. One of the things that we want to make sure this show does is translate your experience and your insight, your wisdom, your motivation to help, even if it helps one person who's listening, what would you say is the, the element of either your time in the Navy?

All your time in NASCAR that you look at and you're like, if I finish NASCAR tomorrow, let's say someone funded me, I got to go on wind day toner and all of my dreams were achieved and I could walk away. So I'm done. I know I would still apply this learning to my everyday life, whether it be as a business tycoon, that it sounds like you're going to be.

Or whether it be as a parent or a partner or whatever it might be, what is the element of your life and your experience in your journey so far? You're like, I think this is something that applies to just life in general. 

[00:31:52] Jesse Iwuji: You know, um, I think the biggest thing is, um, like we talked about before, you know, going through journey, it's going to be a hard, it's going to be tough, um, for those going through whatever journey, understand, um, when it gets dark, even in the darkest point of the night, the sun will still rise.

So life's a cycle. Remember that life is a cycle in the darkest point of the night, the sun will still rise. They'll just keep on pushing that. That's the biggest thing that I apply to everything I do in life. Because when you understand that you believe in that and you have faith in that, then that's when you will get through anything like nothing's gonna be able to stop you because no matter how many punches you take, no matter how many times you get kicked down, no matter how many times you lose, no matter how many times you get embarrassed, no matter how many times You just look dumb doing whatever you're doing.

Um, you're gonna get past it and eventually you're gonna win because you understand that even as dark as it gets, as dark as the night's gonna get, the sun will still rise. And and and once you know that you're unstoppable, 

[00:32:47] Paddy Steinfort: that's awesome, man. Sounds like you are unstoppable. This is, uh, this is a cool moment to catch you in your journey because I'm sure it is, uh, it's gonna be ongoing.

You know, I look forward to replaying that clip where you said I'm gonna win that. race at Daytona. When that happens in the future, I'll pull that clip out. Be sure to, uh, to share it back to you. Jesse, thank you very much for your time. If people want to track you down, either for your drag racing stuff.

Or any of the other business ventures you've got, or just to follow you, because I love your story. Where's the best place to find you? 

[00:33:14] Jesse Iwuji: Yeah, the best place is on all different social media platforms. I'm mainly on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, um, but people can just type in my name on there. Jesse Iwuji.

That's uh, J E S S E. Last name is I W U J I. And uh, if you can't remember how to spell it, go on Google. Type in, uh, Navy NASCAR driver. There you go. Or at 

[00:33:36] Paddy Steinfort: the very least should be at the top of those listings. There might be some imposters. There's only one Jesse Iwoji. Well, thanks again for your time, man.

Look forward to following the rest of your journey and, uh, and keep on trucking. 

[00:33:45] Jesse Iwuji: Yeah. We'll step away. We'll do. Thank you.