Mechanical Engineering into NASCAR Driver | CJ McLaughlin [45] - Transferable Skills

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Transferable skills, skills fromCackle Media.
This is transferable skills. I know Michigan.
Today's guest is CJ McLaughlin, who shares his skills journey
from mechanical engineer into NASCAR driver.
I hope you enjoy CJ McLaughlin. Welcome to the show.
Great to have you here. Yeah.
Thanks so much for having me though.
I saw our mutual alma mater, Wentworth Institute Technology,

(00:21):
where we both went to school, had posted a profile about you
and the update within your career and I was like, oh this
is awesome. I wore my Formula One watch for
this conversation. Different brand, different
sport, but in the same genre. Let's call it.
Right, right. Going going around in circles.
Going around in circles, I saw avideo that was posted recently,
I think it was by your team. Give me some advice.

(00:42):
Go fast and turn left. Exactly, exactly.
So we get paid, get paid money to do.
I've really enjoyed the last number of weeks of diving into
your career and reminding myselfof a subject that I don't get to
experience as often as now I realize I want to.
I appreciate that like greatly. I always say to people, if
they're not an asker fan, I'm like, hey, you know, spend all

(01:02):
the time with awesome. You ever, you ever watch a Red
Sox? Yeah, like I'll go to a game,
right. And oh, you'll go to a game
because the energy is different there than watching on TV.
So I try to do the same thing with NASCAR.
Have you ever been to a race? And they come, they have a great
time. They're like, oh, I'm a NASCAR
fan now. You know, it just takes that
first like initial kind of race,good taste, smell of smell of
fuel in the air and burnt rubberin the air too.

(01:23):
It really makes a difference. I mean the one sensory trigger
that science has said unlocks memory is smell for sure.
And going to a live event has a completely different experience.
And sometimes it's even worse. Like I'll give you one example.
I don't know if this is a hot take but I believe in 2025 and
maybe beyond going to an NFL game.

(01:44):
Not as fun as watching it on TV in my opinion.
Tickets are super expensive. It's usually very cold, your
seats are pretty awful to see most of the game, and
everything's expensive. If I'm at home, I can sit on my
couch, eat my food, I've got my bathroom, I've got all my
friends, and it's essentially free.
That's not the case with a lot of other sports.

(02:05):
I think baseball's like that, like you said, the Red Sox, like
going to a game. There's it's different.
It just hits differently. And I have been to NASCAR races
and it is different. It the sights, the sounds, the
smell. It is a completely unique
experience. Oh, for sure.
Yeah. The sounds like, hey, hearing 40
cars roll by going 200 miles an hour is like a whoa, yeah.

(02:29):
It gives you another level of appreciation.
Many people are guilty. Those who have not been in
person are guilty of not really relating to the speed because
when you see it on TV, it looks a lot slower than it actually
is. Even if you can see the speed,
it just there's something, there's a disconnect.
When you see them whiz by and you hear that zip it, it's I

(02:50):
think you appreciate it to a whole nother level.
I think the drivers even more soget more respect and
appreciation once they realize, oh man, there's somebody in that
cockpit. So there's a company called
NASCAR Racing Experience that does right along the track.
So if I sponsor the lucky enoughto be there, I bring them on a
ride along and that we get to goaround the track.
I try to bring them right up thewall to experience like, hey,

(03:11):
we're driving a car at 160 milesan hour, 2 inches away from the
wall, you know? Yeah, I have before.
I've been in those construction zones like on the highway where
you're like you feel very close to that concrete barrier, but
you're really not. You're like 4-5, six feet away
from it. You're not inches away and it
still feels nerve wracking traveling at a, you know,

(03:34):
construction zone. Everyone's following the speed
limit, obviously. What are you doing?
40 in the speed zone, in the speed in the construction zone.
So I can't imagine going 160 that close.
It's it probably changes somebody's perspective for life.
Oh for sure then hopefully they won't sponsor me braces.
That's a plug. If you're looking to sponsor,
reach out to C JS team. Great opportunities are right

(03:58):
around the corner, right around the next turn.
Oh I used to use that in my nextwatch all video.
Now we're going to back up. You went to Wentworth Industry
Technology in Boston. I know you.
You grew up in Framingham, in inMassachusetts.
Yep, Yep. Like Metro West area,
Bellingham, Framingham. You went to Wentworth to talk
about your area of concentration.
You're studying mechanical engineering.
Technology was a precursor to just mechanical engineering.

(04:21):
There was a couple of cool math classes that differed, but I
just love like the hands on aspect of it.
Like my freshman year we were inthe shop like a good amount of
time. I have a great welding classes.
I took a little 2 year hiatus and I got a welding job and I
was like, oh, I know how to Weldbecause like I learned in my
college and then I was like man,like going all the bowling nose

(04:42):
out and just being black. I like this kind of sucks after
that and like not getting some weight jobs because like, oh,
you need a weight degree. And then I went back and pursued
that four year Bachelor's of Mechanical Engineering
Technology degree. I have a lot of feelings on
everything that you just said because it's so frustrating when
you know you can do a job, but you're you don't have
necessarily the credentials thatthey believe you need to have or

(05:05):
at least are expecting to get that job.
It's really. Frustrating.
It's it's almost a double edged sword though too because like I,
I know I did mature while I was at college.
I changed the ton from my freshman year to my senior year.
There were tools that I gained and I were like industrial
organization, like learning how people interact in the
workplace, learning why people do things that they do, trying

(05:27):
to save a face, right. Not trying to be embarrassed,
not trying to go they're going to work and not trying to get
fired. Not trying to go to work and do
the job, just not trying to get fired.
You know, I've had some people'smindsets.
You mentioned the cost of highereducation, you mentioned four
years. There's a time commitment there
and there's also the practical hands on experience.
There's also apprenticeship and there's trade schools.

(05:49):
And I think we're at a flex point right now where the cost
of higher education with the maybe expectation on ROI, like
what am I going to earn afterwards and how long it's
going to maybe take to pay off my debt?
And what am I looking to do? And do I really need that to do
this? I don't.
I can't say yes or no because it's going to be an individual

(06:10):
choice. But in some of the things like
for instance welding, mechanicalengineering, the question is do
I need four years or can two years get me to the point where
I can apprentice? I think the idea of internships
have a morph. There's no more apprenticeships.
They're just internships that you go on your coffee and it's
like they're not learning. But also like that's why we're
program is cool because we have the Co-op still learning, still

(06:33):
doing, but I wish more companieshad co-ops to just normal kids
out of high school or something.Yeah, I like that you mentioned
that because I was about to mention the Co-op at Wentworth.
It is literally one of the reasons I chose that school
because I was looking for a 5 1/2 year five, 5 1/2 year
undergrad in in architecture. But I also like that it was

(06:54):
practical application that you had to satisfy a semester at
least, or two semesters of Co-opand it was 2 semesters of Co-op
and you're getting actual practical hands on experience in
whatever field you're studying before you graduate.
The other thing that they advertised back then and might
still be true is that all the professors in the individual
schools also practice to some degree whatever they're

(07:15):
teaching. It was it.
The point of all that is to say that one of the main attractor
for me to Wentworth was it was avery comprehensive program that
had a breath of experience, knowledge and training that I
felt very confident in and it was a great experience for me
personally and I hope it was foryou.

(07:37):
Oh, definitely. Like I love to to.
It's like the people that I was with, they were from like the
same like socio economic upbringing that I had.
We all like, like to work with our hands.
I went to Wentworth because likemy semi and goal was like, I'll
work as an engineer on a NASCAR team.
Yeah. And then I was like, I don't
want to do that either. I'm like, I just wanted to hold

(07:58):
the steering wheel. All I want to do, I don't want
to turn a wrench. It's one of you.
I turn wrenches now like it's you always want what you can
have, right? Like hold a steer wheel.
No, I want to show a wrench turnwrench want to be the steering
wheel holder and. We're going to talk about
turning the wrench even when you're behind the wheel,
understanding components in order to be able to give
feedback and to be able to understand performance or

(08:19):
diagnostics when you're the onlyone able to physically represent
that diagnostics team in real time.
I will never be a NASCAR driver for many reasons, including and
certainly not limited to my eyesight.
Like I've got perfect vision after LASIK, but it doesn't
matter. There's probably something about
the way my eyes work and my brain processes that I'm just

(08:40):
not going to be able to respond fast enough to the needs of a
car. So my eyesight's pretty good.
I spent some time at It's comingcalled Pitfit.
They're gym for racers. They use what's called Naptech
screen. So like you'll hold a tablet in
front of you and look up and look down at the tablet.
You'll have to read numbers and certain orientations and look
back up. And so we found out like that my
vision, like your eyes focus like this and then when they

(09:03):
come in, they go in towards you.So we trained that a little bit
because like my eyes weren't as good as that, like reading like
a number off the dash, reading awater temp, oil temp or oil
pressure and then bring it back.It's refocused on the road ahead
and use a permanent. So I was like, I was glad that I
went to that place to figure out, OK, I can improve here.
That's cool, I didn't know that you could do that and now I'm

(09:24):
reminded of a friend of mine. Shout out to Doctor Rafi Wald
who's from Newton, so not far from your hometown.
He has had various positions andincluding clinical, but a few
other sports leagues and divisions that help them on the
scouting. From a neuro psych standpoint,
the ability to evaluate things that are not just behavioral,
but cognitive and neurological and reaction time and speed and

(09:46):
processing and all that stuff. Super cool.
When you're 10 years old, you don't think about these things.
After Wentworth, where did you go?
I. Went to a company that did it
was called conformist. They did 3D printed needs.
I thought the technology was cool.
I had it in there like they helped me get an interview and
dude, I'll tell you I was for the their worst employee.
I figured out like I had to walkaround and no one was saying

(10:07):
anything to me. So I like do have my job walk
around for a couple hours and like, I think it lasted 3 weeks
there. And then I got a got another job
and I was an MIT based startup that was more fit, fit me a
little better through the team of six people.
Like I felt like I was actually moving the ball forward with The
thing is that like I ended up like having three different
titles. Like I was procurement, like
sales near like mechanical engineering, like I was on site.

(10:31):
That was a good company that did.
And then I just started testing out on oil and gas pipelines.
So that was the coolest segue into my next company that ended
up sponsored me was Psyops. They were using handheld
instruments to measure the chemical like chemical makeup of
those pipelines. So like jumping from one company
to another in the course of like10 years.
It's pretty cool. With your mechanical engineering

(10:52):
background. Yeah, yeah.
It's like fall back on and be like, Oh yeah, yeah, I have one
of those. Yeah, I I know what I'm doing
exactly. Proper analysis I know that
metal mail Yeah, yield strength OK when.
Someone says they're an engineer.
I my next question was OK, what type?
One thing I actually love about mechanical it's sort of like
like plumbing to me. I'm able to understand mechanics

(11:14):
better than things like like electrical engineering.
That's more math. And the thermal dynamics are
very different than fluid dynamics.
They're very different than torque.
As an example, I can fix a toilet easier than I can fix a
light switch that isn't working.How often are you in a situation
in mechanical engineering where you think you know what you're

(11:35):
talking about, but you've got todo some research and figure it
out? What are the steps to
understanding areas that are newto you?
Yeah, not so much anymore. Like my day job is like sales
and marketing, like marketing. These companies that work with
me in terms of like being a racecar, the crew treatment team
have everything set up for me where I'm like, I'm telling them
what I'm feeling in the car and they're adjusting tire pressure,
ride height and different thingsof that nature.

(11:56):
There's a huge amount of aerodynamics that go into racing
and stuff that like way beyond, way beyond me and my medical
capacity because we're always surely work for downforce and
horsepower. Those are two biggest things in
NASCAR in terms of like engineering.
I just installed a show car in the 50th floor of Main Street
Autos corporate headquarters andI created a free body diagram to

(12:18):
give to the engineer that we hired.
And he was like, dude, this is you might as well draw this on a
napkin. What are you doing?
I thought I had all the math right And we we differed on our
opinions. I have a really big question for
you. That'd be Talladega Nights or
Days of Thunder. Days of Thunder, but there's
appreciation for Talladega Nights.

(12:38):
I feel the exact same way. Days of Thunder One of my first
true. Loves so like I was.
Already a Top Gun? Fan it's so, so funny to say Top
Gun because I love Top Gun the news Thunder and there was a
point where I was thinking aboutlike enlisting like armed forces
and it's do I go become a fire pilot?
Like I think I have a reaction. That's for it.
I still get lit up when I see the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds
like they are the coolest thing ever.

(13:00):
Me too. Like I, I went to an air show
last year and I was like, yeah, this is the best, you know?
You're like a little kid, right?Exactly, it's like things that
go loud go fast and I definitelyare an engineer marvel.
That's the one thing I'm scared that I can do.
I could go 300 miles an hour heights, you know, like but I
felt like Top Gun, like I could be a fire pilot because I don't
want to be a fro ride. I like and same thing in the

(13:22):
car. I don't want to go for a ride.
I'll be the driver, right? But I think you know who gets
The Who gets the least credit isthe guy like Goose?
He's in the back, He's along forthe ride, Maverick.
Yeah, he's the Rio radar intercept officer.
You're shot down without that guy.
Yeah. Good point.
Yeah, he. Deserves a lot of credit.
He also made the ultimate sacrifice.

(13:43):
Shout out to Anthony Edwards. God love you.
Days of Thunder is Top Gun. It's just on in race cars.
It's the exact same movie. Tell me about the moment
transitioning from full time mechanical engineering and
making that decision saying I really have to pursue this.
I want to become a driver in NASCAR.
I know you grew up in this world.
How did you make that decision? I think it was just like a long

(14:05):
term pursuit and like the piecesfell in place.
The whole story is I'm at this company at a conference.
I signed up for their e-mail letter because I was really
interested in their technology. And then a week later they
announced they were sponsoring arace car.
I was like, I was just talking to these guys.
I was just talking to them and I'm looking for a sponsor and
they're from Boston. I'm from Boston and I've only

(14:26):
for a sponsor for like 10 years.And I emailed them like, hey,
like we just met. You guys are sponsoring this car
out there. Would you guys are want to
sponsor me in an event? And they're just like, yeah,
sure. And I never heard that before.
It's always like, no, not interested.
It's so expensive. They're just like, yeah, we're
down, let's play. Why do you think they said yes?
The CEO of very adventurous CEO like loved risk, loved the idea,

(14:50):
felt well with the market demographic, wanted to do
something different. This was the second startup.
There's there's a whole bunch ofdifferent reasons, but mostly
felt right with the demographic.It's like it was like my lucky
breakouts, you know, like when you said, yes, I was like,
really? It took me a second later to be
like, yeah, this is real. Yeah, that's wild.
So my senior year at Wentworth, I was like punting my degree,

(15:10):
right? I was full blown season.
These got degrees. If I just show up for class for
once a while, they're not going to fail me.
And so I would spend like my offhours between classes just like
cold calling companies, right? Like every Boston based company,
Market Basket bones, couple of farms, every company I can think
of just to be like, hey, I'm a little kid, I'm trying to make
it big. What were you guys being

(15:31):
interested in and like? Collected 1000 Nos get that one,
yes. Did people respond and say no or
did they just ignore? You I wanted ignores more like
75% ignore 10% nose. And there's some math there that
that doesn't add up. But yeah, a lot of nose.
How did you not get burned down?Loose faith.

(15:51):
I well, I did for a while. Like that's like when I got like
my second job, like all right, like I got to pay the bills.
I had Cumberland Farms on for a race in New Hampshire.
There's approval process you have to go through with NASCAR.
I kind of jumped some steps was like I didn't have the funds to
race at the lower level. I just didn't have the funds
available to go racing there. In that middle ground is that

(16:12):
where you're essentially starting to get noticed and then
they at least have data and history where they can look at
it and analyze and then say yay or nay.
And so you're missing that essentially that exposure.
Yes, exactly, basically somewhere between college
baseball and high school baseball like that like
precursor there and I just didn't have the funds like my
dad, the truck driver and like you know I had all my money

(16:33):
going to college at the time. So I got the funds are just
saying complete but we figured it out if it was engineered it
save some money took out like another student loan to pay for
that intermediate fund and got to go off from there.
I guess persistence pays off. Oh yeah, it's so funny too.
Like I was listening to a podcast with Adam Sandler and he
was talking about how like, his first few years of stand up

(16:54):
comedy, he bombed and he was like, Oh yeah, I sucked.
I mean that. But like, he was like, I would
go home and tell myself like, Ohmy God, it's so great.
Like I was so great at that. And they're like looking back
on, he's like, yeah, sucked. But like he just told himself,
like your monologue is so. Yeah, I struggle with wondering
when you go home and tell yourself that it's going well
when it wasn't, is that good? Because otherwise you burn out

(17:16):
and you need that self reassurance in order to keep
going. Or is it delusion and denial?
I think, well, it's like, OK, I was just having this
conversation. If it's positive delusion,
whatever, it's your own life. It's your own script, so listen
to it. I suck.
Whatever. If I tell myself I'm the best
and then add the caveat like keep working on it, you're
better than, what's the downside?

(17:37):
We got to be your own cheerleader.
You're the, you're #1 you got tolook out for yourself and you
got to believe in yourself. And even if it's not going well,
you got to keep pushing. If you believe that you do have
what it takes to get to whereveryou're trying to get to.
I love, by the way, the perspective of of somebody being
on a talk show like The Tonight Show or something.
It's wow, overnight sensation, overnight success.

(17:57):
And I guarantee you that almost no one is an overnight success.
Is it Seems like it because we never heard of you before last
week. But whatever you're doing that
you're now famous for, you probably have been working
towards and laddering up for a long time.
I. Mean there's an interesting
little my dad, like the rest of my dad, like he told me my whole
racing career. So I raced with my dad when I

(18:19):
was 10 years old, like 17 and like, oh, you're going to go
pro, kid. You're going to go pro.
So all will find you. There's no one out there looking
for the next Jeff Gordon. Like that doesn't happen.
So it's like, right, you have tofigure out the pathway into
NASCAR and the pathway forward, too.
But you know, no, no fault to him.
Like that's what he knew. But he's also your dad.
His job is to believe in you, Right, Right, right.

(18:40):
For sure. When I made my first race, I
said something to like that. I was like, why'd you like,
why'd you spend a lot of money on racing?
And he was like, Oh no, I believe in me.
So I believe in you. I still like kind of tear up
right now, like thinking about that, you know?
That's awesome. Nobody believed me.
So I'm believing in you. Yeah.
He's. That's every parent's
responsibility. What are the takeaways and
learnings from my life that I can then inform you and help you

(19:01):
be a better version of me? That's great support.
It's unbelievable. We all want to be that.
Oh yeah, in some way. Like all the money, he's like,
we had no money growing up. Like he's like every time he had
into like, racing and it's yeah,like maybe if I was managing
that a little better, like we could have done bigger events to
get noticed. But like, he did what he knew.

(19:23):
He knew that was a local short track and that's what we could
afford to race in. He's doing better than most
people even to get to that point.
You're still in a minority. No for sure.
You know, it is wild to think about that too.
Like even right now my financialstatus, like it's very hard for
me to get a truck trailer and a car.
Like I live in a one bedroom apartment.
Like I don't have a garage to work out of.

(19:44):
It's going to go to go running agarage.
If my daughter is only two wantsto go racing next year, that's
ad scratcher for me, you know, like, OK, how do I put that all
together for Yeah, so. But you can also take your
learnings and your experience, just as your dad did.
Even more so now and apply them to your daughter, your children.
You know what it takes and you know what you were maybe lacking

(20:07):
or things that could have been done differently.
It's up to you to decide OK, howdo I plan for maybe the
inevitable? Right, right.
No, it's. She's the next.
Danica Patrick, she definitely. She sits on my simulator with
me. It's pretty funny.
That's awesome. I know.
Is your racing SIM any more advanced than consumer grade?
No, it's AI. Would say a high consumer grade

(20:27):
though, like a yeah, fairly fancy steering wheel, fairly
fancy pedals, fairly fancy curvemonitor, but everything that you
can buy off the store and at like out-of-the-box and like the
iRacing platform is like available to everyone.
The iRacing platform for software is like fantastic.
The lasers get all the tracks like the bumps you will feel on
the steering wheel. So that is very accurate to to

(20:49):
what actually happens in the car.
Wow, that's cool. Yeah.
Let's talk about the skills. Mechanical engineering
background. Now you're behind the driver's
steering wheel. You're in the driver's seat.
What kind of skills help you, enable you to be better at your
job because of your background as a mechanical engineer?
You're going to hate me for this.
None. None.
OK, I want. To hear your answer, but I'm

(21:10):
also going to push back. Go for it, OK?
It's just. A feeling in your butt, like
you're feeling the car rotating underneath you.
So like the way I explain it is the host of sensation a normal
driver can get to racing as you take an off ramp as fast as you
possibly go, don't touch your brake.
You know that sensation of when your front tires are losing grip

(21:32):
and they're starting to chatter?That's that sensation we're
looking for. Adversely, that's a passenger
car in a race car. They're made to turn.
So when you start to turn a little bit and then the car
starts to over rotate and startsto take off on you, you have the
counter steer and come back towards it and kind of guard the
car. Not like you're drifting, but a
similar situation because they're made to turn

(21:54):
oversteering. Correct, correct and.
Then the under steering is like the chatter of the track.
So having that sensation of feeling and knowing how to
communicate that to the team, like, hey, the car is doing this
and then being repeatable as a driver, right?
So knowing that I hit my marks, I did the same way every time or
even the same outcome versus oh,I think I'm doing this and the

(22:15):
car is doing this. Your description of.
It's the feel, not necessarily your mechanical engineering
background. Is that CJ or is that Kyle
Busch? Is that you or is that pretty
much most drivers are relying onfeel versus maybe mechanical
education? Most drivers are.
Feel there's only one other driver that has a mechanical
engineering agree, that's Ryan Newman.
And I think too, I think that's just being interested in how

(22:36):
things work, not necessarily what's actually happening within
the car as you're driving it. Like the car is responding with
all the inputs as the driver's inputting.
With all the springs and shocks that are going on within the
car. I can't think about how much the
car is travelling. The crew can check that and know
that to know how much pressure is in each tire, but I'm
thinking about what the car is actually doing with the outputs,

(22:58):
what the inputs are to the outputs that are happening when
you're experiencing. The feel and response, is there
any math behind that that you'recalculating like as you
described, taking the on off ramp pretty quickly, Most people
if they even know how to actually drive that effectively,
they're not even going to be thinking about physics really.
It's just instincts, right? Yeah.

(23:19):
So you're feeling. How much crib you have in the
front, tires in the steering wheel and then you're feeling
with your butt, how much tire grip you have and hopefully you
get a good feeling in your butt,but does your knowledge?
In and I know automotive engineering is even a
subcategory of mechanical engineering cause essential
engineering. Now we want to talk about the
specific application here in cars.
Are you able to then just take your feel and say, at least I

(23:41):
know roughly what this is attributed to?
Yeah, to a. Degree the OR or.
Or or are you literally saying to your team the same thing that
my neighbor does when they go into the mechanic and saying
it's making this noise? Yeah, no, seriously, like, hey,

(24:01):
guys, I have a feeling like it'sbombing out and then I use my
hands. Oh, I'm, I'm doing this in the
corner, and then it's doing thisin the corner and then I'm up in
the corner. And then sometimes it should be
as stupid as the car doesn't feel like it's in the track.
You got the mechanics. Who are like, he doesn't know
what he's talking about, but we understand what he's trying to
say, right? Right.
Well, and they're and they're two, like I'm sure I have a
serial around just looking for one.

(24:23):
It's like I put this much wheel into it and it does this, but if
I put this much wheel into it, it's chattering up the track
trying to diagnose it. Oh, that's interesting.
Yeah. Are you getting real time
feedback over the radio or are you waiting until you're done
with that lap or something? Well, both.
Sometimes you got to. Sometimes you got to catch your
breath like bristle. It's a 15 second lap time.
It took me two minutes to come and Dirt Rd.
Hey, tell me how the car is doing and I'm like, give me a

(24:44):
second. You know I was just going to
catch. I was just holding my breath for
4 minutes, you know, as I'm doing, Ted laughs.
Give me a second. It's.
Probably like a a pit crew's worst nightmare to hear.
Give me a second. We don't have a second.
Yeah, yeah, that too. That too.
Yeah, right. Like the practice, like that's a
detriment of the Oscar right now, the short practice
sessions. But as a discussion for another
day, there was a Gary. Vaynerchuk video that you had

(25:07):
mentioned earlier when we were talking in a previous
conversation, describe what the message was that Gary Vee was
mentioning there. So you gave a talk.
At University of Southern California, basically saying
like go all in on like your yourbest attributes they have if you
go to math engineering or to go to sales, right.
I discovered I'm not the best engineer.

(25:28):
All I want to do is become an astronaut like my whole life, go
all in on this. The worst not going to happen is
like maybe I waste 5 to 10 yearsand I still have like my whole
life added. I will listen to that talk all
the time, right. I was just geared up.
It was like my Rocky background music.
You'll be all pumped up for weekafter week.
It's about the message reminding.
Yourself that. Ignore everything else.
Focus on the things that bring you joy or where your skills

(25:49):
are. Yeah, because engineering.
You're in school, too. Like, you're going to pick the
projects that you want to work on.
And then when you find a companythat's, like, willing to take
you on, it may not be your dreamjob right away.
And that's like, yeah, difficultto like, swallowing that pill.
Like, OK, I'm working at this company.
Like, I love it. Hate the mantra of like a job
like pays you a salary to like forget about your dreams.

(26:11):
I know it's such a sad truth. It's tough.
It's. It's it's tough either way.
I would say took a good job, butlike I'm living at my you're
doing it. You're.
Living that message and I love that let me ask you a couple
questions before we hang up hereall right, this is a question
I'd like to ask people given your natural strengths and maybe
learn skills, what is a job thatyou believe you would excel at

(26:35):
you're really you would be really good at but you're also
exceedingly overqualified for car salesman That was fast and
an awesome answer I wish I couldlike.
Go sell stuff on Wall Street. I feel like I'm going to make
some money out of that, but I definitely not overqualified for
that yet. Still learning.

(26:56):
Yeah, but. Is that because you want to earn
a lot of money? Yeah.
But that's not the, that's not the spirit of the question.
Because ultimately, you will likely earn a meaningful income.
Meaningful you'll. Do OK.
You'll do well if you're doing what brings you joy.
And so some of those things, thepurpose of that question is
because usually I like to ask people this, not when we're

(27:18):
being interviewed, but in like just casual conversations, Give
me two or three. Because ultimately the purpose
of this is I came up with this question like 7-8 years ago and
I would float around in conversations because you, there
are through lines and you can start to see, OK, what are the
commonalities between these two or three jobs that you
mentioned? And why do they bring you joy?
And what can we tease out to seehow they can actually be applied

(27:39):
into the job you currently have or the one that you actually
truly want? That's why I said overqualified.
I'm, I don't think that you're going to quit your job in any
capacity to go sell cars. I could see it being something
that you do sort of leveraging your brand in the future.
I think it. I've always wanted to do is like
just having a wakeboarding boat,like teach wakeboarding lessons.
That'd be just a lot of fun. I'm sorry, now I'm getting it

(28:00):
put over ball. I don't nothing to do with
anything. I'm just like, that'd be full of
fun, right? Exactly.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
And if you are even overqualified for that or not,
maybe that's like your retirement job or maybe that's
what you do during the summers. You find a way to balance the
things that are practical with the things that are that bring
you joy. On the note of an.
Uber driver overqualified. I am overqualified.
And so are you. That would be awesome.

(28:21):
By the way, you should add that to your list.
So we we. Me and my videographer were like
talking about like fun, like funny, like skits to do.
And imagine me showing up in a race car and being like I'm
Uber, let's go. It'd be ridiculous.
And then like turning back. Like the classic, like they have
a meeting about this. Like this is, yeah, but this is
my full time job, you know? Like that'd be so funny, but
that smells. Like an incredible ad spot if

(28:44):
you can, if you partner with theright brand, who's going to
sponsor that commercial? That would be a ridiculous
commercial. We had another idea.
You know, like Domino's like guarantees delivery in under 30
minutes exactly like that's a like.
Perfect partner video would be. Like me training the guy on his
first day, right? Like Iron Man, like dude, we got
12 minutes to get there and it's15 minutes away.

(29:05):
Let's go. That's awesome.
I. Like that, keep thinking of
those. Those are great.
You can start keeping a list of opportunities to essentially
sell your brand to partner with the right organizations, the
companies, because you have something unique, you have an
experience and a skill set and apersonality that I think would
lead very well to brand partnerships.
Thanks for having me on that. CJ, thank you so much.

(29:27):
For being here, it's been an awesome thanks a lot.
I want to thank CJ McLaughlin for being today's guest on the
show and to you, our listeners, for joining us on this episode
of Transferable Skills. Remember, the skills you've
gained can take you anywhere. Until next time, keep exploring
those transferable skills.

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Mechanical Engineering into NASCAR Driver | CJ McLaughlin [45]

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Mechanical Engineering into NASCAR Driver | CJ McLaughlin [45]