Episode 266 with James Patience, ambassador to great causes.

This week’s guest may have a weak connection to off-road, but that string is still attached. James Patience is an ambassador for Bikers Against Bullies, and their message is clear – know who you are! I couldn’t think of a better man who knows. Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.

4:05 – I think you look back and realize that a lot of what you become as an adult is created when you’re younger

11:50 – I truly believe that everything in the world is a pendulum. If it’s pushed one way, it goes back the other way with equal force              

20:04 – I went to work every day. And I learned that…so when you don’t have balance, and you don’t have structure, you have to find something as an anchor. That was work for me. 

27:21 – I can be average and stay where I’m at, or I can kill it and move forward; and it’s the exact same investment for me. Why not move forward? 

36:53 – Imagine like a chocolate Easter Bunny. You pour the chocolate in the mold and you spin it around, and then once it dries, you pull it out. That’s what we do with these tanks.

47:53 –I have to find a way that nobody can boss me around because of money

52:11 – It’s not about stopping the bully, it’s about being able to control yourself in those situations so things don’t affect you. 

Special thanks to Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.

Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.

Transcript

[00:00:05.280] 

Welcome to Conversations with Big Rich. This is an interview-style podcast. Those interviewed are all involved in the off-road industry. Being involved, like all of my guests are, is a lifestyle, not just a job. I talk to past, present, and future legends, as well as business owners, employees, media, and land use warriors, men and women who have found their way into this exciting and addictive lifestyle we call off-road. We discuss their personal history, struggles, successes, and reboots. We dive into what drives them to stay active and off-road. We all hope to shed some light on how to find a path into this world that we live and love and call off-road.

[00:00:46.170] 

Whether you're crawling the Red Rocks of Moab or hauling your toys to the trail, Maxxis has the tires you can trust for performance and durability. Four wheels or two, Maxxis tires are the choice of champions because they know that whether for work or play, for fun or competition, Maxxis tires deliver. Choose Maxxis. Tread victoriously.

[00:01:12.910] - Big Rich Klein

My next guest speaks from the heart. I met him at Titan Fuel Tanks in Idaho, where he is employed. But I fell in love with his custom bike building, building and fabrication of baggers. He is also heavily involved with the bikers against bullying, and just always seems to have a great message. My guest is James Patience. James Patience. It's so nice to have you on the podcast. Yeah, I'm really glad to have this conversation. I'm really impressed with what you write and social media and the program you have going with Bikers Against Bullies or Bullying. And I want to really get into that as well. But I want people to know who James is.

[00:01:58.530] - James Patience

I appreciate that. I appreciate you having me on. And any opportunity I ever have to talk, I take it up.

[00:02:07.080] - Big Rich Klein

Perfect. So that's good. Well, we want to tell your message. And then, I typically do people that are in deep into the off road. But I thought your tie in with Titan fuel cells or fuel tanks is good enough because you have such a strong story and message that I that I see on social media that I just wanted you to share it. So let's get started with the first thing. And where were you born and raised?

[00:02:38.850] - James Patience

Actually, I was born in Idaho Falls, Idaho. I lived there till I was about eight. And And we moved all over the country. I lived in 50 houses in between the time I was eight and the time I was 15. So we spent a lot of time traveling, and I eventually made it back here, back to Idaho Falls.

[00:03:01.320] - Big Rich Klein

So all those moves, was that family chasing jobs?

[00:03:08.120] - James Patience

It was my mom chasing something. So it wasn't really jobs. It was a different world back then. Everybody was trying to find their place, and my mom was having a hard time finding her place. So she was married a bunch of times, and so we would just go when when that happened and just be along for the ride. We lived in a ton of big cities. We lived all over the country, my little sister and I. Then when we were old enough to basically make our own decisions, we ended up back here. Okay.

[00:03:50.760] - Big Rich Klein

That was probably a pretty trying time, constantly moving and changing locations, especially in that pre-teen and early teen years.

[00:04:05.960] - James Patience

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's... When you're in the moment, I don't think you realize what it is, but I think later you look back and realize that a lot of what you become as an adult is created during that time.

[00:04:22.810] - Big Rich Klein

Right. It's those influences that come across the table, you might say.

[00:04:27.120] - James Patience

Yeah, absolutely. That's not necessarily a bad thing. I have a lot of people who say, Wow, that's pretty crazy. My mom was married 12 times, and that was all over the course of about 15 years. People were like, Oh, that's such a weird wild experience. You went to 40 schools, and you lived in all these houses. But for me, it really wasn't weird. It was just life at the time. It's not until I got older that I realized that it was different than what everybody else was doing.

[00:05:00.740] - Big Rich Klein

Right. It wasn't normal. When you're in the moment, everything might seem normal.

[00:05:08.290] - James Patience

Exactly.

[00:05:09.880] - Big Rich Klein

Was there any particular places that you landed that really stood out, or was it just a blur?

[00:05:20.060] - James Patience

It's all a blur. It seems to come back. It's weird. I'm creeping up on 50 years old now, and I get pop with these every once in a while, just things that I haven't thought about forever and ever and ever. I realized there's still influence in my life. But we lived everywhere from Nashville to Las Vegas and Los Angeles and St. Louis. We lived in a bunch of really big cities, and we lived in some rural areas. Then I went to a military academy in California, and that was the last place we were at before I came back to Idaho. And so I think that's probably my most recent… How would you say it? It's the memory that really created a lot of who I am.

[00:06:15.190] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. So that must have been with all the moving and all the changes and going to the different schools and different people that you're associating with your own age and older, and then all of a sudden going to a military high school?

[00:06:31.170] - James Patience

Yeah. Wow. It was a different thing. It was one of those things where you go from absolutely no structure to absolute structure. And that's a pretty hard thing to get into. But I think it helped me a lot in trying to focus. I didn't have a lot of focus, and there was no discipline, really, in our as we were younger. Like I said, my mom was floating around a lot, so we just floated around a lot. So there wasn't a lot of rules or anything at our house. And so we broke some rules. And when you break rules, you have to be accountable for those things, and that's how I ended up over there. And then I learned a bunch of cool stuff and grew and then was let out of there when I was 15, I moved back to Idaho immediately after that, and then just got to figure out how to make everything work. I got a job, actually, and just taking out garbage at a Chevy dealership. The owner and I became friends, and I moved through the ranks there, and eventually was the shop foreman there, and That gentleman has created...

[00:08:03.570] - James Patience

He's a big entrepreneur around our area, and so he's created a bunch of new companies and new facilities and things. Over the years, I've moved to the ranks there and run a few of his companies. I have been with him now for 34 years.

[00:08:24.920] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, so he's the owner of the company that you work for now? Correct. Which is part of Titan, but you're the manufacturing facilities manager?

[00:08:35.680] - James Patience

Correct. I run the manufacturing facility. It's called Tango Manufacturing. A large part of what we do is all the manufacturing for Titan fuel tanks. We have some other companies that are in there as well, but we are still tied back to Titan fuel tanks. Okay.

[00:08:54.940] - Big Rich Klein

I want to touch on something that you said that slipped right on by there when you said you were let out of the military school, was that because of... Were you in there because of instances, like court placed?

[00:09:09.590] - James Patience

Yes. Like I said, there wasn't a lot of structure in my home. So you just do what you want to do. I got myself in some trouble and I had a couple of options. I was actually in Arizona when it happened. I was living in Phoenix and some stuff happened, and I had the option of a longer term correction or a shorter term correction. The shorter term correction would have been this new trial military program that they were doing in California, and it was called the Cadet Corps. We moved over to California. We moved over to Bakersfield, and then I went to Fort Ward, California, and I was there for a few years.

[00:10:06.520] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:10:07.270] - James Patience

And then after a while, I was doing what I was supposed to do, and everything was going the way it was supposed to be going. So they let me go home.

[00:10:20.500] - Big Rich Klein

So you graduated?

[00:10:21.920] - James Patience

Correct. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. So I graduated out of the program. And so the program was basically for troubled youth anywhere from the age of about 12 to about 18. That's about the age range of what it was. But we got to basically live on a military base, do everything that the military would do. We learned a lot of really cool skills and a lot of things about cell value and things that I personally didn't really realize. And structure is a very good thing if you don't have structure.

[00:11:05.400] - Big Rich Klein

I look at the way a lot of family these parent their children nowadays, and I call it free range parenting. And I'm not really sold on it. Maybe I'm too old school because I'm 67, and I had a lot structure with my parents, my grandparents, and with scouting, and even school athletics, sports. I was rebellious to a lot of that. But it still was that structure was always there.

[00:11:50.760] - James Patience

Yeah. I think there has to be a balance. I truly believe that everything in the world is a pendulum. If it's pushed one way, it goes back the other way with equal force. And you have to find a nice balance with everything, whether it's family or religion or politics or anything. The middle is a great place to land on almost everything. But if you swing really, really far one way, it's going to come back really, really far the other way. Where I had no structure growing up, I had to try to find a balance of how to create structure in my house without making my kids resent me and making them push away from me anyways. So that's a trick. And I know people who had very intense structure in their homes growing up, and they, like you say, they free-range parents. So you have to find a balance there somewhere, and that's different for everybody. Right.

[00:12:58.910] - Big Rich Klein

So how did How did your sister handle the... I mean, anything that we're discussing, if you decide that you don't want to talk about it, just let me know.

[00:13:10.010] - James Patience

Yeah. You know what? I have learned that everything that has happened in my life is what creates me. That's it. So that's a pretty simple thing. So there's no topics with me that are off the table because it takes good and bad to create everything. I see a lot of people who go, Man, you're successful. To be honest, I have an amazing life. I have a great job. I have an amazing family. I get to travel, I do off-road events, and I build custom motorcycles, and I get to be in all these places and do these things. People come up to me and say, Oh, man, it must be so great. You haven't had to give up anything to do these things. Sometimes those are the people that need to hear that you've struggled and that you've suffered. That's okay. It's okay to not win all the time.

[00:14:13.170] - Big Rich Klein

Right. That's true.

[00:14:15.320] - James Patience

Yeah. So nothing's really off the table with me. My sister, she had a little different path than I did. When we got back to Idaho, she was about 12. She started having kids pretty young and went down the other path. She's got really older kids, and I've got pretty young kids still, and she's younger than me. But I think the way she went was good for her. We definitely did different things. She ended up married earlier and having kids earlier and things like that. I was so concerned that I was going to put my kids in the same situation that I was in that I overcompensated. I wanted to make sure before I had kids, that I had a healthy marriage, and that I had a house, and I had cars, and I had a career, and I had all my things to protect that base. That works for some people, and it doesn't work for other people. Right.

[00:15:30.640] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. And when you say that you are your experiences, that is so true. It doesn't matter Like you said, with the pendulum, it's... Life is that way with everything. I mean, it's with... And you can see it now with everything that's going on in the the world, in the United States. It swings one way, it comes back the other way. And man, if it could just hang in the middle somewhere, it would be so much nicer. But we just can't figure that out.

[00:16:15.800] - James Patience

It's always a fight for somebody in everything we do. In the world, it's always a fight for somebody because there's two different sides to everything, and you got to find a way to balance that out. When I was a kid, and certainly when you were a kid, you could talk about everything, and you could have a completely different perspective than somebody, and you'd still go to dinner and still hang out and still do whatever, and you go, Oh, I like Fords, I like Chevies, whatever. But you're still friends or you're like, I'm Republican, I'm Democrat or whatever, and you're still friends. But the further we get, the pendulum keeps swinging further and further. And now the balance is all gone. True. True. That's...

[00:17:08.710] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. So you get through the academy and the program, you moved back on your own, you and your sister, or did your mom move?

[00:17:22.640] - James Patience

So we all moved back. My mom moved back. And so This whole episode is going to be like Dr. Phil moments or something. My life is… It's simple now. It just wasn't simple before. We moved back, me, my mom, my little sister, and we left some of our older siblings here. When I was about eight, my mom gets married and says, We're all going to move to Nashville. Well, the older kids didn't want to go, so she just took me and my little sister. During this time, we're gone. It's just me and my little sister. Older siblings are still here. So we moved back, and we're back just... We're in Idaho for a couple of months, and my mom gets married again and says she wants to move to Vegas. So we moved to Vegas. We're there about just a couple of weeks, and my mom gets arrested for fraudulent checks. It was a thing at the time, and They extradited her back to Idaho, and my mom goes to prison. I move in with my sister, my big sister, who was here, and her husband. They really are a huge reason why I am the way I am as an adult, because they had grown up the same way I did, and they had started to counter that.

[00:18:58.240] - James Patience

They wanted structure, and they wanted their kids to have structure. They were pretty tough on me, and that's okay. But then I was visiting my sister's husband at a shop that he was working at, and we were talking. A guy walked out and said, walked out into the shop and said, Hey, you know what? I'm the new GM of the company. He was introducing the people, and he shakes my brother-in-law's and says, What do you do here? And he's like, Oh, I'm a tech. And he shakes my hand and said, What do you do here? And I said, I don't even work here. And he goes, Do you want to work here? I said, Yeah. He goes, I'll be here in the morning. And so that started it. That was it. I started working there, and I've been with basically that same company for three and a half decades now. Just walking through different parts of the companies.

[00:19:57.500] - Big Rich Klein

So you started off emptying trash and at the dealership, cleaning floors, that stuff?

[00:20:04.800] - James Patience

Yeah. And then I just went to work, man. And I went to work every day. And I learned that... So when you don't have balance, and you don't have structure and you don't have things, and you've already been in trouble, you have to find something as an anchor, or you just get washed away, right? So my job became that anchor. Going to work every day was like, I can't get too far because I got to be to work on Monday. I can't get too crazy because I got to be to work on Monday. Then over time, you build cars and trucks and motorcycles and some cool Jeeps, and all of that stuff ties you back to that one thing. And then the real things, important things, and valuable things come later in life. But I do remember, that's why I work so hard now because I know the value of what it's put into my life.

[00:21:06.590] - Big Rich Klein

Those early years before the military academy school program, things were just like blown in the breeze.

[00:21:20.010] - James Patience

Yeah, absolutely.

[00:21:21.410] - Big Rich Klein

And then at that academy is when you realized that you needed structure, and then so you grabbed onto it once you got back?

[00:21:33.250] - James Patience

Well, I think I was... So when you don't have structure, you don't accept structure very well. So I didn't. And I didn't want anything to do with it, but I knew it was better than my other option. And so I did what I wanted to do. It was cool. It was cool to be a part of something down there. And then when I moved back to Idaho, I had a I had a bad temper problem. I liked this fight. When Every few weeks you lose your friends because you're moving or whatever, you just quit wanting to make friends. It's just easier. So you just go in and make enemies because you're leaving anyways. It's not going to hurt you. I could just go in school, have an attitude problem, do whatever I wanted to do, and get in a few fist fights, they suspend me. Then I just waited out for a couple of weeks while we're waiting to go to our next school. When I got back to Idaho, I had that same theory, I can do this. At some point, I realized that this is where I'm going to be for a long time, and I got to start making corrections on Like I said, my sister was super helpful in that, and her husband, they were amazing examples.

[00:23:06.270] - James Patience

Then just over time, I had to figure it out myself because you When you're young, everybody talks about young being 13, 14 years old. But the reality is you and I can look and go, 35 is young. True. People don't really understand life until they're in their 30s, even though they think they're super smart in their 20s. But you don't really have enough data to make references of everything until you get a little bit older. And once you get a little bit older, you realize that even when you thought you were doing really good in your 20s, you were still making mistakes. I'm sure I'm still making mistakes now, and that's okay.

[00:23:58.010] - Big Rich Klein

Well, the main thing I think, with making mistakes is realizing that you've made them and then trying to correct so that those same mistakes don't happen again.

[00:24:08.340] - James Patience

Yeah. And that we don't pass them on. I think that has all of a sudden My oldest son is 16, and that happened overnight. He was a baby, and now he's 16. And my focus in life is try not to hand down anything toxic to my kids and try to give them the best opportunities they have while letting them make their own mistakes.

[00:24:38.620] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, because you can input great data into kids. But that doesn't mean that they're going to follow the right path.

[00:24:50.940] - James Patience

A hundred %. Yeah, you have to... While you have them, you have to give them as much information as you can and help them and guide them as much as you can. Then at some point, you just have to trust that they take that material and do the best they can with it.

[00:25:12.650] - Big Rich Klein

I've seen that with... You can raise multiple kids the same way, and they're all going to react differently to it.

[00:25:21.320] - James Patience

It's the truth. It's the truth.

[00:25:22.740] - Big Rich Klein

Because between Shelle and I, we have five. I have two, she has three. We'll never be the braided bunch. But it's amazing the difference in each one of the kids. I mean, all five are different. They may not look at each other and say, Oh, we're so much different. But they are. I'll probably take some flack for having said that, but that's okay. I don't know if they listen to this or not.

[00:25:56.150] - James Patience

I have three different kids, and they have three different life goals, three different perspectives on everything, three different personalities, and they're all amazing in their own way. That's not because of how I taught them. That's Because everybody has free agency, right? Like you were talking about with me and my sister. Me and my sister took two completely different paths with the exact same experiences, and we have completely different results now. Not that one One is better than the other, but your free agency lets you choose which path you think is better. Sometimes we're lucky to have dodged a bullet on a couple of things. I know I have many times my life should have turned out substantially different than it did, and I'm blessed that it hasn't, but that's what it is. Every person's life experience and every person's own personality is what creates that person. Right.

[00:27:05.500] - Big Rich Klein

So you're working at the car dealership, and you start off low man on the totem pole.

[00:27:12.200] - James Patience

Yeah.

[00:27:13.140] - Big Rich Klein

Over these 30 years, you've worked your way up and beyond the lowest man on the totem.

[00:27:21.860] - James Patience

Yeah. It's one of those things where at that point, I I was thinking, here's the deal. I'm here for eight hours a day. I can be average and stay where I'm at, or I can kill it and move forward. And it's the exact same investment for me. Why not move forward?

[00:27:47.870] - Big Rich Klein

Was that a mental decision or did it just happen?

[00:27:52.440] - James Patience

I think it was a mental decision. I think I was so tired of looking Running around and seeing people around me that had a different life than I did. That's not a feel sorry for me thing or anything like that. But it is a... I very specifically remember that I never had new shoes. That's a weird thing. I was like, You know what? I'm going to go buy a new pair of shoes. In order to do that, I have to go to work. Then I get this little shoe addiction, and I loved it. Then It's just steps, baby steps to become an addiction. The first time you pay your own car insurance and being able to buy dinner for your friends, and you become addicted to having things that you didn't have before. In order to do that, you have to exchange something. For most of us, that's time. Then you grow, and you grow into different positions and different opportunities. I basically made a rule for myself that I would take anything that was offered as far as moving forward just so I could add a skill set. And I wanted to learn because learning is how I grew.

[00:29:26.180] - Big Rich Klein

I think having a leader leadership type trait is something that is just there.

[00:29:37.830] - James Patience

I agree.

[00:29:38.710] - Big Rich Klein

I don't think it's something that you learn. I look back on my life, and I didn't have the outside forces and the change and everything that you did. But I always... I just remember, whether it was whatever it was, it was in scouting or anything, others just looked at me, or it seemed that they looked to me to lead. They would come over to the house and go. Friends would come over and go, Okay, what are we doing today? It was my decision. And that just led to everything that I've done in my life to move up what I would call moving up the ladder. And to be... I've always strived to do things on my own, meaning not working for somebody else. I have worked for other people, but I always felt inhibited, or not inhibited. I always felt that no matter where I was at, work-wise, there was always somebody above me trying to hold me down.

[00:30:56.250] - James Patience

I agree. I can see that for sure.

[00:30:58.680] - Big Rich Klein

And so I I would just... I'd get to that point in any company that I worked for or any job that I had, and I'd eventually go, All right, I'm out of here. Change jobs or start my own business just to keep... So I wouldn't have that foot on top of my head, you might say.

[00:31:18.430] - James Patience

Yeah.

[00:31:19.430] - Big Rich Klein

And so the ability to be able to work for somebody that doesn't do that and allows you to continue really grow would be amazing.

[00:31:33.590] - James Patience

Yeah, and it is. There was a time, not 2007, 2008. I've always been into auto body, and I love taking ugly things and creating beautiful things, like most people do. It's another opportunity for me to learn a whole bunch of new skills. I jump into wanting to build... I'd done some custom cars. I wanted to build some custom motorcycles. I thought, Man, I'm going to be a bike builder. That's a great thing for me. I started building bikes. I invested all my time and my money in it, and it was an after-hours thing. It was something that I could... I'd go home at night, I'd get home at 6: 30, I'd work till 2: 00 AM, back to work at 6: 30 in the morning. I just did that for years thinking that's what I wanted, that I wanted to be my own boss. Once I got successful at it, I realized that wasn't what I wanted. I wanted to go to work during the day. The owner of our company, he's an amazing guy. He's been a close friend of mine for my entire life and been an amazing example. He just lets me do what I want to do.

[00:33:00.030] - James Patience

He lets me have control, so there's no stress on that. That money gets to... It pays for my house. It pays for my white pick of fence and 3. 5 kids and my dog. I get the life out of that side of it. It lets me go home and I can build custom motorcycles or do art pieces or things like that and not have to worry about them in my house payment. They get They get to be an expression. They get to be something that I still enjoy doing. That has really moved me from trying to utilize that as a way to make money and more as a way that I get to help people. That's really where my addiction has come and all my attention for the past about 10 years has been just... I love that culture, and I love that energy, and I love the people I've able to meet, and it's been really great.

[00:34:03.810] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. From the dealership, what was the next step, or how far did you move up at the dealership.

[00:34:16.510] - James Patience

I went from taking out garbage. One day, they had an oil change kid that called in sick, and they're like, Can you change oil? I'm like, I guess I can figure it out. So I go over and I do it. He came back a couple of days later He was mad and said he'd quit. He quit because I was doing his job for a couple of days. They said, Well, I guess this is your job now. After I did that for a few months, they said, Wow, I think we're wasting your potential. We need to get you some real training and make you a line tech. I would spend a couple of weeks down in Ogden or Twin Falls. They both have colleges for automotive. I would go down for two weeks, and I would come back and work for two weeks and go down for two weeks. I did that for a year or so. Then eventually, I made it to be the shop foreman, and that was over eight or nine years. Then one day, our owner came in and said, I drive to Lake Powell all the time, and I just can't stand having to stop and fill up my truck three times on the way.

[00:35:28.840] - James Patience

We got to build a tank a big tank to go underneath these trucks. We pulled in a new truck and put it on the rack, and him and I just designed this big tank out of a block of foam, and we sent them off and had molds made. That's where Titan fuel tanks came from. Over the course of the next five or six years, it was a small company, and it was just something that was this little niche that we'd sell a of them, and it was okay. Then after a while, he was like, We're getting too big. We got to figure out a way to take care of all the customers who want this. So he built a new facility, and I left the Chevy dealership and went to that new facility, and I oversaw all technical service, all new product development, and all of our engineering department. I didn't know any of that. Again, that was one of those things where he said, I know you can do it. Let's figure it out. I figured it out. He didn't care that I didn't have a degree in engineering and things like that. So over the next few years, I did that so I could oversee the engineering side, and that was good.

[00:36:53.110] - James Patience

Then a few years later, demand was so high again. We used to have all of our… Titan had their tanks made in Minnesota because that's just where they do it. So they're rotationally molded polymers. So it's like… Imagine like a chocolate Easter Bunny. You pour the chocolate in the mold and you spin it around, and then once it dries, you pull it out. There's a little chocolate Easter Bunny. That's what we do with these tanks. That technology isn't really everywhere. The technology is, but people aren't doing that manufacturing in this of the country. We have it done back east for, I don't know, seven, eight years while I'm in that part of the company. They've been doing it now 15 years or something, and they just couldn't keep up. As Titan grew, we had to make a decision. We built a state-of-the-art facility here in Southeast Idaho. Again, I have no knowledge of how to do anything on that side, but he said, You can do it. So I did it, and we moved across the street. I've been running that facility now for about six years.

[00:38:16.220] - Big Rich Klein

Great. You guys brought everything in-house then?

[00:38:20.160] - James Patience

Correct.

[00:38:21.570] - Big Rich Klein

And you're able to keep up?

[00:38:23.790] - James Patience

Yeah, for the most part. The sales are really good. The company does really and the product is really good. So we've been able to keep up on that side, and we're trying to become more and more efficient and bring in other molding clients, and we've been able to do that as well.

[00:38:46.180] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, that was going to be my next question. So have you started to become that outsource or somebody else?

[00:38:52.080] - James Patience

We have. We really don't talk about who they are, But we do have some, obviously. Titan is the number one aftermarket fuel company in the world. That's a pretty nice badge to wear. Another one of our companies is Hultek, and they're the number one aftermarket intake company. They build intakes for Corvettes, and so they're the number one in the world in what they do, too. We've had opportunities to bring in a bunch of molding, and we're really critical of who we bring into the building because we want to be the best we can for the people who are building the best. We want a partnership. We don't have 50 customers in that building, but we do have a few that are really good at what they do.

[00:39:52.990] - Big Rich Klein

Great. That's awesome. There's multiple types of materials that you guys use. Can you just create that with the Rota molds?

[00:40:03.480] - James Patience

Yeah. It's all a polymer-based, so a plastic-based material, and it can be molded in pellets or basically a powder or something like that. Then each one spins in this big machine. It's like a million dollar easy bake oven. It's basically what it is. We're making really expensive cupcakes. But Yeah, everything is done. There's a lot of science to it, and it's not just put something in and take it out. I'm dealing a lot with chemicals and engineering and science and things that 13-year-old me couldn't grasp that I'd be dealing with. And all the stuff I've learned over the years, it's a pretty cool thing to look back and go, wow, look at how many opportunities I've had to make myself better. It's pretty cool.

[00:41:06.550] - Big Rich Klein

So let's dive into the other aspect, your building of artwork and and motorcycles. That's when you first caught my eye. We came up there and visited. Shelle and I did when we got the magazine for Lo, and we our ambassador tour, and we went around, and one of the companies we visited was Titan. And I met you. You had a number of baggers there at the shop, and I was just like, oh, my God, because I mean, I've never ridden a Harley. I always had street bikes. But I love the baggers.

[00:41:59.760] - James Patience

Yeah, they are super, super popular, and we've done a ton of them. I have the reverse of most people. When guys start building motorcycles, they're usually young. Guys my age, they started building in the '70s, and so they built cool choppers and stuff like that. Then you go through the Orange County days, and they built a big fat tire chopper. Then later on, they I'm building baggers, and that's culturally where it went to. For me, it was just the opposite. I'd been building cars. When I get into bikes, I had a couple of choppers that I didn't build, and then just some modified Harley Davidsons. Then the bagger craze comes around and we start doing big wheel baggers and lay frames and full air and big audio and stuff like that. I started doing that in about 2009. I'm progressing the other way. As I got culturally further into it, I became addicted to old-school bikes and choppers. That's what I do now as I build choppers, and we still do baggers and stuff, but I let the bagger guys and the guys who do it for a paycheck, I let them do it. And now I just do what I want to do.

[00:43:27.820] - James Patience

I just do stuff for me and for my friends, and for some of our charity groups and things like that.

[00:43:33.490] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. I grew up around the Outlaw Biker. My uncle was an Outlaw Biker. And down in the San Francisco Bay Area. And I would, as a teenager, that 12, 13-year-old, they'd come by him and his club, I guess you call I'll tell it. They'd come by and say, Hey, you want to go for a ride? And I'm like, Yeah, sure. And I remember one time they left me watching their bikes at a mall when they said they're just going to run in and come out. And it was like two hours later, they hadn't shown up yet. And we were probably four miles from my house. And I got really upset, got mad, and I left. And I was basically supposed to sit there and watch their bikes and make sure nobody messed with their bikes. But what they said was going to be 15, 20 minutes turned into 2 hours plus, and I left. Well, they finally showed up at my house, and my uncle was really upset. And I told him my view of life and that if he ever did anything like that again, when I got old enough, I was going to beat him up.

[00:44:52.130] - Big Rich Klein

And eventually that did happen. But it was one of those things that I learned early on, but the bikes always intrigued me. I can remember going to the Oakland Roadster show and seeing my uncle's best friend was a painter, and some of the paint jobs that he did on cars and bikes for that show and just blew me away. It's an art form that That I couldn't equal in anything that I do. I have the vision. I just don't think I have the patience to do detail work.

[00:45:46.170] - James Patience

I think, like you were talking about earlier, that the leaders are born and that they're not created. I think that artists are born as well, and you have to have that in you to drive you to complete some of those things. I know a lot of people who can do anything in the world, but it's hard for them to see how to make something beautiful that's not beautiful, and they just don't understand it. So it takes all types.

[00:46:22.930] - Big Rich Klein

It does. Let's talk about... I know that the bikes that you had Some of those bikes that you had that I first saw were ones that were built for the charity. Correct. Let's go down that part of your life.

[00:46:44.340] - James Patience

Okay. Well, I guess it's a two-part deal. I'm in my shop one day and the guy comes in and says, Hey, I want you to build me a bike. I I said, Okay, what do you want? He goes, This one right here. I've got a good road king sitting by the wall. He goes, I want that bike right there, and this is how I want you to build it. I said, First of all, that's my kid's bike. It's not for sale. He said, Everything's for sale. I'm like, It's not for selling. He's like, This is what I'll pay it for. I was like, Oh, it looks like you just bought yourself a road king. He's like, And this is what I want you to do to it. He had some stuff, and he was a great guy. He's such a mellow guy. But at the time, everybody was trying to be these scary bikers, and that's how he wanted to be perceived. He's like, Hey, I want you to airbrush. I want you to a nurse on one side of the tank with her boobs out. I want you to air brush a nurse on the other side of the tank shooting a pair of one and stuff.

[00:47:53.300] - James Patience

I'm like, I'm not doing that. He's like, Well, you have to. I said, But I don't have to. He left, and he came back a couple of weeks later and said, I need you to build that bike. I said, You know what? I've been thinking about it. First of all, I'm selling out because I'm selling my kid's bike, and I would have to do things that I don't want to do. It's not that I care if any of that stuff's on motor cycles and stuff, but it doesn't mean that I have to have my name on it for my kids seeing it at car shows and stuff. He left again and came back a couple of weeks later and said, Hey, here's the deal. I'll pay you the price for the bike. You can build it any way you want. I won't question it. I said, Done. I built him a bike, and a month later, he shows up. It's just this mint green road king, all trimmed in black, super simple, really pretty, and he loved it. Right then, I was like, I have to find a way that nobody can boss me around because of money.

[00:49:02.590] - James Patience

I can't let him come in and force me to do something because I need to rely on it to pay my house payment. But I still want to build. I still want to be creative. And weirdly enough, a couple of weeks later, I was in Sturgis, South Dakota, and I pulled into a bike show, and A guy's there and he comes up, says, Oh, this bike's super cool. And we talked for a few minutes and he was like a DJ for the event. I gave him my cell phone number and stuff, and he texted me a couple of weeks later and said, Hey, I have a charity up in Montana, and I know you're from Idaho. Do you want to come up and be a celebrity for me for the weekend for this event we're doing? I said, You know what? I'm not a celebrity. He said, Well, they don't know that. Nobody else knows that. At the point, yeah. I'd probably had 25 bikes in magazines at the time, and I'd build a bunch of cars for Seema and stuff. But I'm just a regular guy who everybody, you and I, are involved with almost everybody's normal people.

[00:50:27.590] - James Patience

We just It's just perspective. Just because you're on TV a few times doesn't mean you're famous. It's just a situation. I went up and I go up and we sign autographs and he has shirts and we have this thing, and it's this great weekend. At the end of the weekend, we're sitting there talking and I said, So what do you do? What is this even about? And he said, Well, I run Bikers Against Bullies USA. I said, Oh, that's cool. What's the point? You're anti-bullying. And he said, Do you know how many kids under the age of 16 committed suicide last year? I was like, Oh, that's a pretty big question in this thing. I'm like, Under the age of 16, maybe 100 in the country. He said, No, there was 4,400. Right then, I was like, Man, I have to be involved in this. I have to figure it out. I said, Hey, anything you need from me to raise money, for his program. Basically, Bikers Against Bullies USA, it's a program. It's a motorcycle-based program that he created. His name's Flash, and him and his daughter, her name's Wink. They created this program, and they go into schools with motorciels, and they do a program for kids, for elementary and middle school kids.

[00:52:11.070] - James Patience

It's not as much about anti-bullying program, but more about empowerment for kids. Everybody understands that there's bullies everywhere in one form or another, whether you're a kid on the playground or it's your boss at work when you're 50 years old. It's not about stopping the bully. It's about being able to control yourself in those situations so things don't affect you. And then we just get involved and we start doing some stuff together. It turns into a long term relationship that him and I have. And with another 30,000 people in the country. It's been pretty amazing.

[00:53:08.000] - Big Rich Klein

With that, you've been able to travel to different locations during these doing events?

[00:53:14.700] - James Patience

Yeah. There's chapters basically all over the country. Every state's basically got it, and it's been growing. When I got with him, it was pretty new. It was a couple of years old. They had a custom bike, one custom bike that they had, and it was all done. I kept telling him, Hey, why don't you let me take that to the shop and change it up for you a little bit? After about a year, he let me. I brought it to my place and changed it. And then everybody loved it. And then he's like, Hey, we're going to give a bike away. Do you want to customize this thing? I'm like, Yeah. I'm like, Hey, let me knock out a couple of skate boards and we'll auction them off, and that'll give us some money. And that happened. And then they created. So there's some ties in with motorcycle magazines, too. They're doing publicity stuff Obviously. They create a ride, and it's a ride to Sturgis. Basically, what it is, is you start at a predetermined location and you spend a week stopping at towns, signing autographs, doing meet and greets and things like that with a bunch of builders and stuff.

[00:54:33.920] - James Patience

Then you end up in Sturgis on the last night, and you do a big fundraiser. Then they donate all that money to Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Special Olympics, Youth and Family Services. They donate it to people in need in those situations. Each year, that starting point changes. We were able to do 10 years of that just starting all over the country. We'd start in New Mexico or Las Vegas or South Carolina or New York, Nashville. We started pretty much everywhere. We did that for 10 years and we raised just $2 million for all of those, the Special Olympics and things like that, some engineering programs for some kids and some kids, the research stuff. That's been That's been an incredible thing to be a part of.

[00:55:34.940] - Big Rich Klein

Would people join you along the ride?

[00:55:40.500] - James Patience

Yeah. Initially, it was this It's so flash says, Hey, I want to have you come on the ride with me because, again, you're a celebrity, right? We'll have regular people that would want… I mean, how cool is it if you're on the bike world, how cool would it be to see what they consider a pro builder, guys with stuff in magazines, and you ride with them during the day, and then you have dinner with them at night, and you just hang out, and they'll donate to go on this ride. Each person on the ride donates $1,000 just to be part of it, and then covers their own motels and stuff like that. We did it the first year, and it was pretty great. There was probably 65 riders and a couple of builders and things like that. Then the next year, we end up with about 120 writers and some builders, and some musicians, and people that are actually rock stars and actually famous. Celeverities, yeah. Yeah, actual celebrities. Then over the course of the years, it just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Pretty soon, there's 125 couples, and We're taking over every town we go into, and not in a bad way, but in a good way.

[00:57:06.850] - James Patience

It just becomes this great thing. Then we have these big events when we get to Sturgis and give all this money away. It's great. But then you also get to build relationships with... I know a bunch of musicians and guys in bands and custom painters and real custom bike builders and stuff that I didn't get to know, or I wouldn't have got to know without those situations.

[00:57:37.800] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Pretty cool. Pretty cool to be part of something like that and to be able to give back and have that opportunity.

[00:57:47.120] - James Patience

Yeah. It's a good source for me to relieve that artistic stuff I want to do, too. So I'll do like 50 art pieces just to auction off on the way or throughout the year to raise money for that event, or every couple of years we'll donate a bike and we'll raffle that thing off. So I'll build it and donate it. It's a pretty cool thing to be involved in, but it is incredibly addictive. Once you are around people who are all like minded like that and everybody wants to help and everybody's going above and beyond to be amazing. Yeah. It's pretty hard not to want to be with it all the time.

[00:58:36.290] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about your family, your kids. How long have you been married?

[00:58:46.730] - James Patience

I've been married 22 years.

[00:58:49.670] - Big Rich Klein

Very good.

[00:58:51.080] - James Patience

Very patient woman, for sure.

[00:58:55.120] - Big Rich Klein

But you sound like a very patient man.

[00:58:57.830] - James Patience

I'm learning. I'm learning, man. She was... So everything in life is steps, right? So I keep trying to find things to anchor myself to be a decent person over and over. It's my job, it's building, it's things, it's all that. And my wife was one of those huge steps when I was like, Man, I can't mess this up, though. So, yeah, 22 years ago, I really started being Hula in. Okay.

[00:59:30.300] - Big Rich Klein

And your kids are, you said your youngest is, or your oldest is 16?

[00:59:37.990] - James Patience

Yeah. Yes. I have a one that turned 16 last week, one that turns 13 in two weeks, and one that turns a girl It turns 10 in a month.

[00:59:49.190] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent.

[00:59:50.100] - James Patience

So, yeah, all amazing kids. I just knew, they say, If you're a bad kid, you're going to get back when you're an adult. I've been terrified for my whole life that what my kids were going to be like, and they're incredible. A lot of that is obviously the influence of my wife.

[01:00:11.360] - Big Rich Klein

Your wife's influence took over, huh?

[01:00:16.200] - James Patience

Yeah. She's got four of us that she's had to correct up.

[01:00:21.430] - Big Rich Klein

So what do you see in the future? Is there anything that you haven't accomplished that you have on your proverbial chalkboard that you want to accomplish?

[01:00:36.970] - James Patience

I don't know. I think that's one of those things that... I'm a pretty firm believer, there's a plan and I'm going to ride. Because if I was to make plans and try to stick to them, my life wouldn't be what it is now. There's no way I could plan for what I am. So you just never know. I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm going to enjoy it and I'm going to be along for the ride. Cool.

[01:01:12.150] - Big Rich Klein

James, I want to say thank you so much for sharing your story with us.

[01:01:20.050] - James Patience

I really appreciate you having me on.

[01:01:21.630] - Big Rich Klein

I think that there's a lot to gather from your beliefs and and where you've come from and what you've been able to do by using your own mind and thought processes. And I hope that the people that are listening to this glean something out of that.

[01:01:48.000] - James Patience

Yeah, I appreciate that.

[01:01:50.230] - Big Rich Klein

So thank you. Thank you. Enjoy your day. And I hope to... Well, I'm coming up to Idaho here in a little bit in June, And I'm going to try to make a point to stop by and say hello.

[01:02:05.110] - James Patience

That would be great. We'll give you a tour of our new facility, and you can check out our easy peck oven.

[01:02:10.490] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. I'd love to see it. All right, James. Thank you so much Rich, and have an enjoyable Sunday. And I wish you all the best of luck in the world, and I hope all your dreams come true.

[01:02:26.120] - James Patience

I appreciate that, and you as well.

[01:02:27.870] - Big Rich Klein

All right, James. Thank you.

[01:02:29.830] - James Patience

Thanks so much. Okay.

[01:02:30.660] - Big Rich Klein

Bye-bye. Well, that's another episode of Conversations with Big Rich. I'd like to thank you all for listening. If you could do us a favor and leave us a review on any podcast service that you happen to be listening on, or send us an email or a text message or a Facebook message, and let me know any ideas that you have, or if there's anybody that you have that you think would be a great guest, please forward the contact information to me so that we can try to get them on. And always remember, live life to the fullest. Enjoying life is a must. Follow your dreams and live life with all the gusto you can. Thank you.