Games with Entrepreneurs #1 - David Reichelt, Creator of Color Switch

I was blown up. You were? Yeah, it's uh yeah, it's odd to think about cuz it was like 14 years ago. I'm 85 now. What is up? Welcome AppNation. I'll say that just to get that out of the way. But welcome to this brand new podcast. It is called Games with Entrepreneurs. And today we're going to be playing a game, lots of games, with my friend David Reichelt who created Color Switch and has a brand new If you're interested in learning about how to build games, he's got a brand new course to teach you how you did that and how he's been able to find so much success with this Color Switch game, which we'll find out wasn't the first game or the second game or the 10th game that he created. So without further Oh, and you can check that out at colorswitchacademy.co.

Is it com? .com. Okay. So colorswitchacademy.com. David, welcome my friend. Thank you, Steve. Thank you for having me. Again. Again. This is like a while since we've been doing this. All right, David. So we're going to play a game. Let's go straight straight into this. And I'm going to share my screen with you. Okay. All right. So here are today's categories, David. We've got your personal Oh, man. got your business tips and then we've got a silly random questions. So where do you want to start?

Oh gosh. Well, we got to we got to not take ourselves too seriously with this stuff. So let's start with the silly question. All right. Number one. I like this question. You're about to get in a fight. What song comes on as your sound soundtrack? Oh man. I don't I don't know if I've ever been in a fight. Um well, kind of. Gosh, the what Probably Rocky cuz you know Eye of the Tiger? Yeah. Yeah, that one. That'll get you pumped up and ready to think you're going to fight or you going to run, who knows.

Do you have a fighting technique? You know, actually in the military we learned a little Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I used to remember the rear chokehold where you just like wrap your It's so easy. You wrap your elbow around someone's neck and then you just lock in and you can It's like the simplest move. So, if you don't want to fight, you just make the person pass out and then you're golden. I know one of the things that the from your background you were in the military and we're going to There's a question about that experience as well. But, was there any type of training like Is there anything that you learned from the military that you sort of brought into the the business world? I found David like a lot of successful people, especially from the military background, they've just got something to them like in this sort of like no quit personality that is very interesting to me and I feel like it translates well into the

real world. Oh, big time. I mean And perhaps that's because you go through such extreme situations that when you come to challenges in the in the in this normal kind of like everyday um world here, they're not as extreme. So, you're like, "Oh, well, I did this extreme thing. This isn't as extreme. Doable." So, for example, my course we filmed something like 90 or 100 videos in the span of four days. And then we were like, "All right, we have to edit all of this in a month."

And a lot of people and there's a lot of stuff that goes into each video in a you know, one video can take a whole day. And some people would be like, "Well, that's a lofty goal." And then uh from my perspective I just think well uh you haven't done the things I've done. So, we're going to make it happen. So, um so, yeah, that's uh that's I think that comes from that just being in extreme situations and then coming to situations that aren't as extreme. Then you have that, you know, you have that perspective to draw from.

The Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, how would you get somebody into that hold? Like, is there a nice quick Oh, yeah, it's simple. First, you um you uh you you uh get them like uh you know, you offer them a soda and while they're taking they think you're a friend, you say, "I'm going to get myself one." You go behind, boom! Yeah. Done. You know, I this is where we'll translate well on video, but I my I had a friend back in high school he used to teach he he taught karate and so he taught me this one move and I used to practice it all the time. So, I'm like, if I ever had a fight, like, there's only two or three moves I want to go to, right? One of my go-to moves is this and I get people all the time. It's this move.

I'll show you real quick. So, you go left hand, you go to the forehead hit forehead like the opposite temple, then you go down, you block yourself, go down to the chest, come back up, and then hit them with a hook right to their face. And I they usually block the first two and it's the third one that usually gets people. And if you do it really fast, it gets that third that left hook will get you. So, if I ever don't want to do a podcast, that's the sequence of events for me.

Well, you're going to have to put me in a Brazilian Be careful. chokehold. I yeah, we never really apply that information, so I just remember how to do it, but if I actually had to be in a situation do I probably bring out my deck of cards and entertain people instead. Yes, you're a great magician, man. So, let's yeah, let's have some fun instead of fighting here. Tell me about them like what's your I love the card tricks that you do, but like now you have so much experience in being a magician, creating games, being in the military, musician, like filmmaker as well. What what gets you interested in? Like, where do you kind of like see this progressing to?

Um well, you know, every time you learn some new information, you're going to get new thought processes and new results from the actions you take based off of those thoughts. So, I don't know. All I know is every time I learn something new that's useful, um it helps me out. So, for example, I got interested in the filmmaking years ago. I have never become like a serious filmmaker in that that's what I do for a profession, but when I decided to do this course, um I was able to light it. I mean, this is my set, but when you see my actual videos, it doesn't look like this cuz I don't have the camera and the lights exactly how they need to be, but I was able to to draw on all that information and even though I'm doing something with games, I'm able to to combine those different um tools to create a product. So, if I didn't have that filmmaking background or the theater background or in the public speaking background, cuz that

helps me actually um perform in front of the camera and and do it with uh you know, as naturally as I can as opposed to being nervous and and stuttering the whole time I'm talking. So, it all, you know, you never know that when you learn this stuff years ago cuz I started learning filmmaking, I don't know, it's 15 or 16 years ago. I started making little short films and stuff. I started Toastmasters, the public speaking speaking group, 8 years ago. I did not know that all those things I learned would come into effect right now for my course, and they all did. Everything I've learned, I put into this course to help me craft it. So, so yeah, I all I know is I get unconventional results when I teach myself things, and to have more unconventional results, bigger and better, you have to be a lifelong student, go to conventions, go to workshops, you know, listen to podcasts, certain ones, specific ones. And uh

you're you know, there's so much to learn from other people. I always I always say to myself, I my mind has the equivalent of one drop of water in otherwise empty cup, representing the amount of information I know. And that's always the case. You'll always There's always way more that you don't know that you can add in there. But if, you know, imagine getting a degree and and you just stop at that one drop and then you know, imagine you know, people put the plaques up there and they're like, "Yeah, see that one drop that I got 10 years ago?"

Yeah, that that was pretty awesome. And they just stopped there. Then you you know, you're not you're not going to have too many new results in life. So I that's how I think. I'm like, "Oh man, what else can I learn? I want some new stuff happening in my life. It it create you know, it keeps things exciting. I love it, man. All right, let's move on. Let's go back to the board. So this is not fancy, obviously, because fancy for me. I can't do this.

I haven't been able to figure out how to cross off, but we'll say Random 100 is off the board now. Give me another one. Uh let's do that the the um the business guy. 100? Yeah. All right. So this is interesting. Color Switch was actually your 41st game from our research. Oh, yeah. What have you learned Yeah, right? That's right. Okay, good. See? Cut I think it was what What was it? Angry Birds was like 51 or 50? Yeah, something like that.

Yeah. So something about the 41st or 51st. What have you learned from its enormous success? Well, I finally really understand that quote I had from Michael Jordan on my wall when I was going through all these failed games. And he said he had to he said he's failed over and over and over again and that's the only reason he succeeded. Um and so in this case, you have to go through a field of horribly designed games to get to your good game. It's It's like any skill. I mean, imagine the a big mistake people make when they make games is they they spend months and months and months or years on one game.

Now, let's go to Michael Jordan. Imagine him sitting, he's looking at the the hoop, he's got the ball, and he's ready to shoot it, you know, do an awesome like three-pointer or whatever. Imagine him sitting there for months and months or years. He hasn't taken a shot yet. And a year goes by, finally takes it, and obviously he misses it cuz before he's got to skill up and he's just starting, he doesn't have the skill yet. So, the point being, if you don't take constant shots and and get the feedback from when you missed and tweak that technique and improve it over and over and over, you're never going to get to that kind of status. So, the point is with games is, yeah, it took me 40 games to get to to Color Switch. And but I had to do those over a short period of time. I didn't take years making games. I did 40 games in 6 months. So, that's the one thing I learned from that is go through a slew of mistakes and failed games, in

this case, you know, this example of games, before you can have the chance of having a big success. Did you work with publishers before that 40 41st game? Were you working with publishers when you were launching the other games, too? Or was it all under your umbrella? Uh I didn't even have the money to start a company. I called myself Dinobyte Apps cuz my first game was about these dinosaurs. But no, I was just I got App Store account and just launched games. Cuz I didn't know what I Uh surprise, I didn't know what I was doing.

I was just like I'd be like, "Oh, that looks like a nice trend. Oh, that looks I'll clone that. I'll reskin that." I was just a cloner and a reskinner that you know, in in the first period. So, yeah, it was just it was all just like me at my just like this in my apartment and just launch launch launch all these bad games and that was it. That's awesome, man. Well, congrats on that. That's really cool. Anything else you learned from just like now you got a team, managing a team?

Yeah, I mean, I've learned I've learned a lot from being in charge of people to give people the proper incentives, for example, to So, before I would I would get people to do work, but because I didn't give them the proper incentives, they didn't produce good work. And so, I've learned that you have to not only give people the proper incentives, but you have to also place people where they're going to flourish. So, if I have someone doing a job that they're not good at because they're not passionate about it or whether whatever, then then we're going to be in trouble.

So, I've also learned to put people in the right positions and uh and you know, so they can excel. And and just like, you know, I've learned how to talk to all sorts of technicians and um most most people if whether it's an artist or a programmer, if you give them visuals, they get it. So, I'm really good at at sketches, uh sketching stick figures. That's how I always communicate. I mean, I'll I'll do visual references from other things, but if I really want to articulate a point, I will get my camera up and I will go on a whiteboard and I will talk as I sketch something. And talk them through everything. So, yeah, I've just learned how to adapt to people's different ways of understanding things and then also giving them the proper incentives.

Are you literally getting your phone and putting it up on over like a whiteboard and just drawing something out? Oh, yeah. I mean, the a pen and or a pen and paper is still my tool my weapon of choice. Um you know, I don't have any high technical skills at all. And what I've That's another thing I've learned is the more I stay away from high technical skills and I focus on the high creative skills, then um then uh then that's how I can flourish. And so, I uh I get those technicians and that's the thing. When you're an entrepreneur, you're not it it is is not in your best interest to learn or focus on high technical skills because you can hire technicians who are already well-versed in those skills to do those things. And so, all you need to do is give them the vision.

So, um so yeah, my tools of choice are pen and paper or a whiteboard if I'm home and I just put my iPhone I I love the iPhone cuz it's just like so useful as a tool, and I just put that on a tripod, point it down, boom. I can give notes so quick, and and people always instantly get that as opposed to me typing something. They're like, "What What do you mean exactly?" And then I have to like, "All right, I got to do the the best way." And I'll just do a little more work that way.

Yeah, I love it, man. I've been using Loom a lot, too, just to systematize everything. And one thing I learned, too, is there's a lot of big good books about this, but if something's not happening within your team, it's your fault as the leader, as the founder. bad that happens or good, it's it all stops at you cuz you either allow or you don't. And you got to make all these those mistakes and and learn from it, but totally.

I was just thinking about this one I was like, "We haven't done this thing that I've been wanting to do, and I hired a team to do this." And I was like, "It's 2 months in." I said, "It's the 3-month trial." And I was like, "It's my fault. I screwed up somewhere." Yeah, you know, you um You definitely got to be a um the one that to motivate yourself when you're in charge of all this stuff and um uh yeah, there was no one else who was going to make my course happen cuz also no one can see what the course is other than me. It's all in my head, and so you know, you're yeah, you you have to just will it to happen. You just got to make it happen. And I like a I forget I think it's in the book Think and Grow Rich he says, "Aim for the stars because you'll hit the moon if you don't make it to the stars." So so uh like you know, we we just did a a kind of like a test with my course, like a test launch, and we didn't make all

the you know, we didn't we wanted to have it be done by the fourth, which we didn't, but you know what? Out of 75 videos, we got 40 done. And and the the the rest that aren't done, they just need polishing. The bulk of the editing has been done, so we're going to hit the stars soon. That's awesome, man. Anything about success that you've learned? Does it change you at all? Uh yeah, I mean, when you have when you have a it just the more it's interesting. Uh I didn't know like I said, I didn't know what I was doing when I first did this. I just it's it's uh ignorance is bliss is true because if I knew a lot of information about the app world, maybe I would have been discouraged in the first place, but I didn't. I just was like, I'm going to make an epic game.

And uh and started from there and one thing I've learned is when you have a success you can repeat that success but because you know how you know how you got there. It depends, did you get there by like chance or did you have a specific method? And so I've been building up like this mental machine uh you know, which is how I devise everything and I because I know how I got that specific result with Color Switch, I know that okay, I know how I did it there. I'm going to do it in this way and this way. And then that's where the continued learning comes in because if you continue to learn and apply the new information, then you can have an even bigger and bigger result. So that's that's my plan for example for the the sequel to Color Switch. I intend on that to be bigger than the first one. And there's you know, specific reasons why uh why I know that can happen. So um that's one thing I've learned is once

you have that success, it fuels your actions because you know how to you know how you did it the first time and you can you know, gives you confidence to make it happen again. I love it, man. All right, let's go back to the board. Sure. Let's do the business. Oh no, the the far left one. Uh the personal like a 300? Oh wait, never mind. Wait we got Oh okay, let me go back. Let's go back. Who cares? That was a good one, though.

All right, day life in of David. Like how does it go, man? What are you What are you doing? Uh a thousand different things. Uh I'm working on the academy. I'm also working on uh more Color switch products. You know, I've had I've had um I have I have dozens of products in my head that I'm going to get to once I get this academy out and once I get color switch two out because once those are out then those will fund all these other things I want to do and not all of it is with games but some of it is and it's a lot of exciting different things because the one thing I I get bored at is if I do one thing.

Yeah. Because you know, it's it's kind of like why I dropped out of high school I think. I would always I was always a kid even before high school I'm staring out the window and not really listening to the lesson because my mind doesn't want to learn things that have already been thought out for me which is to you know, is typically how education is in America. It's like, hey, we already thought of this for you. Yeah.

You don't have to think about it. Just learn this and then go get a job and then you don't have but you don't have to think about this anymore because this won't matter at your job. You just have to know how to type. So I was always I didn't know it at that the time but I was always kind of rejecting that methodology of learning and I always would daydream all these crazy ideas and you know, one person some people would call me a pipe dreamer at that point but now I get paid to be the pipe dreamer.

Yeah, look at that. So so yeah, that's that's that's pretty much me as I'm I'm working on a variety of things and you know, I do morning meetings with my teams and I do you know, I see I get people I direct a lot of stuff. I'm basically just like this you know, if imagine some guy in the engine room in the submarine and I'm always having to flip switches and turn dials so that everything runs properly and we don't sink to the bottom of the ocean or something. You know, and I have to like send I have like a little microphone. I'm sending messages to all the areas in the ship. That's me.

Uh you know, I I I what I am not do is doing one thing and putting all my thinking on this technical thing because otherwise we're all in trouble. If I'm doing anything highly technical, we're all in trouble. So, it's just like a yeah, it's just like a thousand different things that I have to like go between, working with different people, making sure that people understand how to do this change or that change properly.

And through all that, just you know, learning more stuff as I go. Um, and then making a ton of mistakes. Cuz guess what? Just because you get a hit game doesn't mean that you don't make mistakes anymore. You make tons more of new types of mistakes. That's all that happens. There's there's a never-ending slew of mistakes. And when again, when you embrace it, when you say, "You know what? Uh, cuz Jordan has another quote where he talked about how he missed 9,000 shots. He missed 26 times he missed the game-winning shot. Uh, but as you said, that's how he succeeded. He had to be willing and embrace the challenge like like Luke Skywalker. "Oh, the empire's too great. I, you know, they're too powerful. I better stay here on the farm." No, he embraced he let the empire fuel his actions. He was like, "That empire thinks they're so awesome and they're going to destroy everybody.

I'm not going to let it happen." And he let the the power that they had actually fuel him and to go on that journey. So, so people should not be afraid of those mistakes and that's you know, that's one thing I've learned even now is is let the mistakes fuel you. Let any challenge or any obstacle out there. Anyone who tells you something or says you can't do something or tells you that's the way it is, all let that go right into your brain and fuel your actions and show them that no, that's not the case. The opposite's going to happen. David, did you say you dropped out of high school?

Yeah, 0.8 GPA. Wow. See, this is what I struggle with my son sometimes cuz I think he's a big goof. I call him that in person. But like it's and I feel the same way. Like I feel like college is overrated, I feel like the education system is a little bit broken, and it's hard to for me to balance between making sure that he's passionate about something. Like he loves Tik Tok and recently his Tik one of his Tik Tok videos went a little viral and he's super proud, but also making sure that he understands there's responsibilities.

And I don't know how to balance that yet as a parent. I'm just like trying to make sure that I push him towards his passions, but at the same time not let him forget that, hey, this is still somewhat important. Like it's just to get it through, but it's like you have responsibilities, right? Like you got you got to pay the bills. You got to do things. I mean, I'm not a parent, but from what I've seen from my all my friends who are parents, cuz I've seen some parents who just lay down the law too much and they have an opposite effect because then the kid goes and does all the stuff you don't want them to do because they've you again, you fill them with this this energy saying, no, no, no, no, no, so much that they're like, yes, yes, yes, I'm going to do it all.

So, yeah, there has to be that balance. And I think I look at it like this way. I just want if I had if I had a son or a daughter, I would want to just I'd have music equipment around my house. I'd have a basketball. I'd have I'd have outdoor stuff. We'd have go you know, I just have all these things and I'd watch and I'd see what were they drawn to? What do they enjoy doing? And then if I really see like a pattern of, oh, yeah, my child seems to to enjoy playing baseball a lot, then I would try to foster it. I wouldn't but I think there's a difference between fostering something and just throwing him in something like, oh, you're going to do this. But I think I think when you actually do something, that's when you actually learn if you like it or not.

So, it's like, oh, let's take you to batting practice or let's try this. And if they don't like it, then you back off. So, I think it's as far as like seeing what they want to do, you just you just like if you see something, you you try to foster that and and uh see if they really want to do it. And then but at the same time, yeah, you got to you got to set down the rules. And I think I think it it seems like if you Yeah, if you can strike that balance of look, I want you to try all this stuff, but like video games Okay, you can play video games, but you have to you know, as long as you do A, B, and C this week and you always go to bed by this time, then you can have this this time.

I mean I and I think yeah, as a parent seems like you got to lay down the law. You can't have those kids cuz they don't know any better. They're just going to like if it was up to the kids, they'd eat all the jelly beans in the jelly jar every day and then have no teeth left. Sometimes I'll let them do it. I'm like get sick, you know, that's one of the That's like And I I assume you also have to let them make mistakes. So it's like oh, you know what? You tried the batting thing. It's okay that you know, the reason maybe didn't hit all those balls is we we maybe we got to go to the batting cage and you know, you have to actually build up a skill and then we'll maybe we'll go to the batting cage for a month and then we'll have you go do a tryout again. But but you know, letting them know mistakes are fine.

But yeah, those are my from a non-parent, that's kind of like how I can kind of understand it. Well, I think it's a perfect transition into the question that we kind of I accidentally hit on, but what was your favorite childhood memory? Um Oh, you know what? It was going to we in Simi Valley when I was uh I think when I was like five or six, my mother met her best friend at a local church and she's just think like Lucille Ball but Okay.

but she's alive now. She's like you know, in the Lucille Ball in the now times. Uh in the current time. Um just this very funny lady with such positive energy and everyone wants to be around her because she's such a positive force. Her name is Pat. And um we would but we would Well, my mom became friends with her, we started going to her house in the '80s and so it's probably like '84, '85. And it was the first time I ever got to play video games and they had an Apple II computer and I just remember playing Lode Runner and her daughter her daughter Elaine would hog the computer most of the time and I had to like just be patient and finally she would have mercy on me and give me the controller. But I loved going over there because in my house my dad was just either yelling or just like just you know just a negative you know you didn't want to get out so it was this kind of like green zone we

could go and play these games go play in the backyard with all the chickens and everything but I think it was mainly when we would go there my mom would visit with her and we would just you know just like it was like a big fun house. Um so probably a lot of it's a collection of memories that culminate into like one experience but we're and I'm still friends with her whole family to this day. And um uh who knows maybe she'll be on the the next podcast with me I don't know.

Yeah that'd be awesome. I love to interview Pat. Yeah I think that that's a valuable I love this question cuz I think as we become parents or we just grow up you start to think that you want to give the kids everything that they had like for me it was getting them a Power Wheels like I've always wanted a Power Wheels but by the time Power Wheels and we could actually we couldn't really afford a Power Wheels and I always feel guilty asking my parents for a Power Wheels because I felt like it was so expensive and anything so I wanted to make sure like when my son turned three I was like let's get him a Power Wheels all right.

Yeah. Like we have like three Power Wheels it's it's crazy but like the my favorite memory was always hanging out with my cousins. I have 21 different cousins and we Oh wow. grandma's house every like Friday night. We still talk about it like hey we used to hang out we used to play. Remember the the Nintendo Super Nintendo Olympic game we where you can run the power pad. yeah yeah. We used to do this instead of running cuz we just use our hands and just pound that power pad but those are the memories and you start to remember that like hey it wasn't it's this sense of like coming together having fun together with other kids that your kids will actually remember not all the toys that you had them.

Yeah, and you know, it's it's a big reason why I got into video games in the first place. I I was always on the search for something that I could do that was fun, but that always but that also gave me the time freedom I wanted so I could you know, be hanging out with friends and family instead of spending my all my my working hours just alone doing work I didn't enjoy. So, it took me 13 years of trial and error. I mean, I tried all sorts of things until I got to games.

But but yeah, it's just like it's like you know, that was the that was the reason. It wasn't oh, I want to make a ton of money, which I think if that's your main reason for doing a business, you're going to fail because the number one reason for doing a business is solving a problem for someone else. And if you solve it better than your competition, then you're going to make the most money anyway. So, you got to focus it's ironically if you focus on other people, that's how you'll make more money as opposed to focusing on yourself.

I love it, man. I think it's a great transition. All right, let's go back to the board, this beautiful board. We got 200 left on the personal and then 2 3 200 300 200 300 here. Do another personal. All right, I like it. So, you're in Iraq, you're a medic in the military and served in Iraq. You'd save lives, you were But the cool thing that I want to learn more about is you're actually nearly blown up a couple of times.

True, David? Yeah. No, I well kind of I was blown up. You were? Yeah, it's yeah, it's odd to think about cuz it was like 14 years ago. I'm 85 now. Um But yeah, there was a couple times. I mean, there was one time we're just going down the road and the the blast you know, this is the if this is the vehicle going this way, the blast was right here in the back window and I was sitting on that side. Jeez. Uh I have pictures from that. I'll just send to you. And then um then there was another time I was just standing outside of the the vehicle, the Humvee, and some guy fired rockets right at us and they just blew up 20 ft in front of us, fortunately. Cuz if he had been accurate you you know, it'd be like in a blink of an eye. So, yeah, there were a handful of things that happened.

And unlike what you see in Mission Impossible movies where Tom Cruise knows he's got 10 seconds to run from the bomb, things blow up. They don't They don't give you like uh indication. They're just like oh, what happened? Oh, you don't even know you were blown up. You know, it's just like such a quick thing and um yeah, so that that happened a couple times. It's like playing Russian roulette. There's not It's not like I did anything special to It's like a luck, you know, It's like uh who knows why why some people make it, some people don't.

But um someone God's watching out. He's watching out. You ever think about that? I do think about death a lot, but not in those terms. But you ever think about like, I don't know How do you For me, like hearing that is just like mind-boggling. Like I don't know how you recover from that or what goes on through your head afterwards. Um I I don't I don't think it that ever bothered me too much. I mean I already um Yeah, I don't know. I mean, for some reason I was just able to deal with these things and then it's not like when I left the military all these PTSD issues that to Probably cuz like I said, when I was a kid and and my dad was still around, he was such a like loud negative force that I got I already got my PTSD from childhood. So, when I went in the military I had this shield of PTSD to keep me from getting affected by those things. But um I don't know, I look at it this way. I'm like, okay,

I've had four or five near-death experiences. I and none of them got me, so I I think for you know, personally cuz I'm Christian, I believe that I was looked out for and I'm supposed to do certain things. That's you know, so I was you know, spared for for a reason. That's how I look at it and we're all nothing is under our control, but we're given this gift of creation from the ultimate creator and we can we can you know, it's like when you have a kid, you know, you you you you kind of give your kid these guidelines, but your kid's still going to make mistakes and it's up to your kid if they're going to listen to what you say or not. And so but you give them these skills and this wisdom and everything. So we're given this gift of creation. We're the only creatures that can actively think for ourselves and create amazing things. And so it's up to you. Do you want to develop and that's that's the most

fundamental wealth is your human creativity, your human mind, your human capital. It's up to you. Do you want to build up that wealth or do you want to build up the poverty? And and it's you know, it's up to people. It it's like this free society. It's very dynamic. We have people who eat McDonald's every day and we have people who are eating vegetables and working out, but we have a dynamic range of people who are overweight, people who aren't and that's just the price of freedom, you know, you have the option to do things that will help you or not, but it's up to you. And so and so for any of these things that happen, it's like okay, well, you're given these gifts, what are you going to do with them? And that's just ultimately up to you and hopefully through our mistakes, we learn to do good things with them instead of just doing selfish things.

The I was going to ask you if you meditate or what really grounds you because I find you as a very grounded person, someone who doesn't really and I don't think I've ever seen you upset. You're always like fun to be around with. You're a joy. Like I've always found you to be and that's why I feel like we get along really well, but what is Is religion? Is it Christian Christianity that sort of grounds you, too? Well, I am definitely for sure. I mean, I've definitely made tons of mistakes in my past. I've um you know, I'm no saint. I've done I've done all sorts of stuff I wish I hadn't, but it the point is, do you learn from those and do you change?

You know, and um and just from all the the you know, when I when I started changing my mindset, cuz I was you know, even when I was making games, I was in this negative mindset of like depression and I just couldn't figure out this thing. I couldn't crack the code. And I was putting all my efforts into this and I felt like, man, I I'm 33 now. I've spent my whole life just going after these pipe dreams and I'm it's just not happening. So, you have all these doubts. But then you just what I've learned from finally getting out of that is if you just like I said, if you embrace those mistakes and if you just are tenacious, eventually, and you're studying the whole time, too, eventually you start understanding things. Because you're you you you will understand things after you apply yourself and you but and you keep researching to get more information and then you have new things that you do. So, it's just a constant um

when I when I started having breakthroughs and learning things and having results, then it showed me more and more that okay, if you keep changing and you strive to to just stay in a positive mindset and strive to to just keep working and improving yourself, that um you know, I just know from my from results that finally things start happening. And taking responsibility. You got to take responsibility for yourself. We're living in a time where people are told, "No, it's not your responsibility. It's because of your gender. It's because of the color of your skin. Or it's because of there's this thing in society that's that's stacked against you." And that's a lie.

Uh the the truth is, if all these things again, all these things you're the obstacles, they're the challenges. And if you embrace the challenge and you say, "You know what? I'm going to be the center of my own hero's journey. I'm going to I embrace this challenge and I'm going to overcome it because I'm going to improve my thinking and and then I'm going to and I'm going to go out there and do something big. I don't care what people say. But there's a lot of people out there there's a lot of organizations that tell people no you're a victim and and if you have a victim mentality you'll never embrace a challenge because you'll say oh it's outside of my control. So I think that's what's kept me grounded finally is just knowing more and more that things are my responsibility and if things go wrong in my company or if they go right it all stops at me.

It's my responsibility to learn from these mistakes and adjust my actions. And only by doing that will your life ever change. Taking that information in understanding that you're in charge to create that wealthy mindset or that poor mindset and that whatever results happen from that type of mindset is is all comes back to you. That's that's what you created. You can only no one can create anything in your life but but yourself. And so if you actively work on creating a wealthy mindset then eventually you'll start having other forms of wealth pop up which is positive people. You know like if I was a negative person I was just like you're a horrible person I I'm like pointing my fingers at you.

You're not going to want to have me on your show. You're not going to want to like communicate with me and you push people away when you're like that. And so so the more you because we we all want to improve and we all we know we're not going to improve if we're around negative people. So so I know that too. If I want to draw in more positive stuff more positive people I want to keep learning then I have to be grounded and I have to be you know in charge of building up my mind in a positive way.

No better way to end a personal segment than with that. All right we got a couple more left on the business side and a couple left on the random side. Where do you want to go? Where do you want to take this? I'm going to call this one Steve's choice. Oh good. I I was hoping you'd say that. I I actually wanted to it to be my choice. it. like all right I'll to choose." You should add that in there. Okay, well, random, Steve's choice.

Who was your high school celebrity crush? Oh, that's easy. That was uh so I'm a uh nine I was a teenager in the '90s and I had the hugest crush on uh what's her name? She was in that show Clarissa Explains It All. Melissa Joan Hart. Melissa Oh, nice. I thought she would be my future wife. No, I was just I that's the one that's the one girl I can remember having the biggest crush on was was Melissa Joan Hart from Clarissa Explains It All.

Who's the second? Huh? Who's the second? Like your second wife. Uh probably Katie Holmes. Okay. Yeah, probably Katie Holmes. She was yeah, she was she's still amazing. Uh she's beautiful. Um but something about blondes and brunettes, I think. Uh Jennifer Love Hewitt. What's that? Jennifer Love Hewitt. Oh, that was yours? Yeah. Yeah, she was yeah, she was of course very beautiful. I But yeah, for me it was it was Clarissa Explains It All and Dawson's Creek Katie Holmes.

Yeah. All right, well, that was All right, I'm going to go to another random. Let's make it Steve's choice again. How about that? Okay. I like the random questions. They're much fun. All right, here we go. Um I think we're on the last one. Tell us the funniest joke that you know by heart. Oh gosh. Uh by heart by heart. Let me think. Let me think. Uh oh, this is a well, this is the one I thought of myself. Okay, I love it then.

Uh uh just Is there pressure for me to laugh now then? No. It's a it's a it's a total dad joke. It's a groaner. It's a groaner. I I I consider a dad joke a dad joke it it um if you say the joke and it's something that like you feel like the person feels like anyone could have thought of and it's not really a new It's not really a new angle on what you're saying, then that's a dad joke. It's like, oh, nice. That What That take you 30 seconds to think of?

So, um uh why did 7 8 Why did 7 Wait, hold on a second. Why did 7 uh Dang, I think I uh hold on a second. Why is there Okay. Yeah, I kind of messed it up. Why Why did Apple not come out with an iPhone 9? Why? Because 7 8 9. Okay. That is That's a twist. That's a new twist on a an old dad joke. Yes, see I took a old one and I give it a little remix. Yeah, I like it. I like it, man. it up by saying the punchline kind of the punchline in the beginning.

Then you did it a completely dad joke. It was in the theme of a dad joke. Exactly. All right, let's finish it up with the last couple of business questions. For 200, what was your favorite setback story? Ah, wow. What's your favorite setback or failure story? Oh, you know what? Maybe it's it's what happened currently because um uh I'm not going to get into details of it right now, but uh my game had came off the App Store. So, I was in a publisher agreement and uh my game was on their account and so when I decided to leave the publishing agreement, they they would not transfer it to me and and um and took it off the App Store. Now, I as far as I know, there is no precedent for when a app is huge and then it comes off.

So, talk about a a setback, I had spent all these years building all these bad games, finally make this big game, massive hit, global hit, um you know, quarter billion downloads around to you know, at this point, and then it it comes off the App Store. Now to in a sense build from scratch again. So, that was a that was great. It was actually great to have to cuz I embraced the challenge. I was like, "Okay, well, if I if I want to um be on my own and and launch all my own Color Switch products going forward, I have to You got to be willing, uh in a sense, to uh metaphorically die and or lose everything to have a chance to gain everything.

So, you um so you you know, you everyone comes everyone's has these specific challenges that come to them and it's up to you to embrace a challenge or not. So, I said, "Okay, I don't I don't care if my game comes off the App Store. I am willing for the worst of the worst to happen by that coming off and let's say I launch it doesn't hit again. Well, guess what? I I cuz here's the thing, I thought of it like this, Pac-Man comes out in the early '80s, right? Everyone loves Pac-Man. Let's imagine that one day you go to the arcade, Pac-Man's gone. And there's nowhere you can play it. 10 years goes by, 20 years goes by. You love this game.

If 20 years goes by and all of a sudden you see Pac-Man on the App Store, I guarantee you're going to download it because you love that game so much. So, that's why I thought I was like, "You know what? It doesn't matter if my game comes off the App Store because people love the game so much, when I relaunch it, I I believe that it would just shoot up." And sure enough, without any marketing, we relaunched it, boom, went straight up the charts when we first launched it.

And and and now, you know, it's still doing decently well. We just haven't been doing any user acquisition ca campaigns or anything, which we'll be doing um in a month or two. We're going to start doing that stuff, but it's been a it's been a great learning experience and it's made me even stronger. Um again, by not being fearful of of the fear of loss, but saying, "You know what? I don't care if the worst happens." The because here's the thing, I have I also have the perspective from the military. I've been in much more extreme situations than a business deal.

I've been in life and death situations. I've had to I've had to treat people in combat zones. So, you're going to come to me and think you're going to you know, I'm going to be scared to lose my game or to you know, to to like have to make that change in it as a business that that's going to scare me. No, I've been in much more scarier situations. So, that's why I said before what I was saying, when you're in a much more extreme situation, when what could be an extreme situation for a normal person, now that I have this perspective, this is not.

This is normal. That's extreme. So, so yeah, I that was a huge setback and I've learned so much and it's made me a lot stronger and it it was an inspiration for you know, me developing my sequel the way I have and the academy and all all sorts of things. So, people should not be ever be afraid to embrace a challenge cuz you don't know that that challenge will will make you stronger later on. All right, we got the last one and leads right into what we're talking about with the academy. So, you got this launch whoops.

So, what happens? I need a producer and I need a real thing. All right, tell us a little bit about this academy. So, the Color Switch Academy for those who are interested, colorswitchacademy.com and then I'm sure I'll will work out something as well with David. But yeah, tell us a little bit about Color Switch Academy. Well, I'm very excited about this. I have had the idea to you know, I've had many people email me and message me and asked if I could train them and teach them cuz there's many people out there who don't have a big success and they they're searching for it though. They they they're searching I mean I you know, I only know I only do what I do now because of countless people I've never even met. I didn't design the video game industry. I didn't write all these books behind me. I didn't I didn't create these this shirt or this awesome bat.

Um there's so Think about it. We're surrounded by things that are the the they're signs of wealth from someone's mind. They created them. So we're in we're indebted to so many other people for, you know, transportation and all sorts of stuff. So so I I you know, I that's why I look at them like, "Man, I got so much help from other people that I've never even met that I wanted to um I wanted to do do something create a product that would help these people cuz they they're looking for their breakthrough. And uh most people don't get in their life. The It sounds sad, but I heard this once that the most the the richest place in the world is the graveyard cuz that's where people go with their dreams. And so I thought, "You know what? I want to do something where I I clear it up for people because I you know, I don't have a family and I spent my life so far just trying to figure these things out and I finally

feel like I cracked the code in a sense. One level like level one, there's all these other levels. But um so the Color Switch Academy, I teach everything I I do in my business currently. All the all the ways I use creative thinking techniques and solve problems and all that, I'm putting that into my course. So my course is a series of modules where I focus on develop that wealthy mindset because all other forms of wealth come from that. So develop that wealthy mindset, learn how to become a problem solver with all these techniques. Same techniques I used to generate my ideas including Color Switch. And then we get into actual production building a games. Um but that's what the course is in it and there's also a big community element to it where I'll interact with people on a weekly basis on our Facebook group. And we're going to do monthly contests with like cash prizes and giveaways and

things because I want I want to make it exciting. I want to I want and and I'm simplifying it, too. I want people to have a fun time. I want them to have a uh support system. And I want them to enjoy doing this, but I also we're showing that we're we're pulling back the curtain. We're showing that guess what? You don't have to know how to code. I don't know how to code. I have no high technical skills. You don't have to know how to code to make powerful games. And so um and so I am showing people that developing video games can be as simple as opening a door or pushing the button on the elevator. And when you show people how simple it is, you'll get people who never even thought about making games before who want to do it. I I even posted in this this Facebook group uh a promo for my my school and this girl said, "I have never even thought about making games and now I I now I want to make all the games."

because my promo makes it look so simple and it is. Because if you focus on high creative skill, which you can learn and apply the same day instead of technical skill, which can take years to become proficient at, then and you couple that with Buildbox software where you can just build a game really quick, now you can focus on being creative and building and it again it's I'm making it as simple as opening a door, simple as pressing the button on the elevator. And now you're going to see a mass uh flow of people getting into this uh because this is a huge hole in the market no one has filled and we're filling it. So I also predict you'll see people doing the same thing next year.

There's going to be copycats. That's just the name of the game, but we will start the trend. Well, what I like about your stuff is obviously anybody can do this. It's you know, you don't need any coding. I think I heard from Trey that Buildbox is becoming free too. There's going to be a free version of Buildbox that's coming up. I don't know, I just saw it on Instagram, but essentially what I like about David's process is actually tells you the techniques cuz I think with the simplicity of building games that David's about to show you almost anybody can create a game, but I think what David does really well is talk about like how do you come up with the right idea? And I think, you know, you and I have done so many collaborations together. You've spoken at a bunch of my retreats and I love the process of how you creatively come up with ideas and you take things, just like you've done with the success of

Color Switch and how, you know, some of the failures haven't affected you. You take so many elements of different things and you combine them. And I was like, you know what? I love color switching. We've done so many interviews about this. I've always told you like, you did something with the color switch cuz I've seen certain games with the same type of mechanic, but with that color switching, that was the brilliant move that once I saw it, I was like, ah, that's brilliant. I love it.

Well, you know where that came from, and I've said it before is now, you know, these these creative thinking techniques, they will show you they will tear any idea apart and reveal the DNA of of that idea. And then they show you how to take that DNA and change it. So, go to the DNA of something powerful. It's like it's like taking the seed from an apple and then using it to plant another powerful tree. So, you take the seed of a powerful design, you can create more powerful designs. So, in my course too, I show you exactly how I tore apart Pac-Man and Uno to get that color switching idea.

And what I saw was, wow, these are multi-billion dollar products. They both use color switching. That is that is not a random thing. That is powerful. And so, what I did is I said, but the color switching in both those games is powerful moment. It's actually a power-up. In Pac-Man, you eat the big Pac pellet, the ghost change color, you can eat them. In Uno, you can change the color to whatever color you want. It's a very powerful moment. People have been conditioned to understand these moments and like them over decades, but they were only small moments in both games. And so, I said, let's take that small moment and let's make it the main moment in Color Switch. And then you have a powerful result. You got to do something powerful, do something different with it, you get a powerful result. So, those techniques create a fluid mindset. Don't look at a wall as a wall or a book as a book. Look at it I

mean, a book what if I wanted to make a book that could open itself and could um and it has a speaker and and it's talking the words to me, but it's also has this thing that's actually highlighting the words as it says them. And it's a it's a paper book. You know, I've never seen this product, but by me looking at it and not saying, oh, a book is like this and saying oh, a book could be whatever I want it to be. What if I could eat the book, you know? Uh it's not to say that all your ideas are going to be great, but the point is don't get locked into one way of looking at things. Be fluid. And that's how you can take pieces of things and mix them into other things. And the more you do that, you become more and more of a fluid thinker. And it actually grounds you more, too, because you don't you stop following conventional wisdom or people that say organizations that say this is this way or that's that way. And you become more

independent in your thinking and then when that happens, things don't bother you as much, either, when you hear them in in the world or on Facebook, on media, when people get all negative. You know, you can you can kind of look at it from a different perspective, but not get triggered by things and just stay grounded. So, becoming a powerful thinker uh equates to that. And so, that's why, you know, that stuff it's so simple to use, but so important. And that's why the first two modules in my course, I focus on that. We don't even get into game building yet. It's build this wealthy mindset, learn these problem-solving techniques.

That is the foundation to becoming to being able to create powerful things. That's true. And it's something that you can leverage beyond just building games, too. That foundation that you teach will be something that you can use wherever. Yeah. People could not even have an interest in games. They could go learn the material from the first two modules and then go do whatever they want with them. Or start a business. I know I I talked to the the creator of Phase 10, the card game, and he was talking about how Uno was just an iteration of something else with that color switch element. Even Phase 10 was like gin rummy, but he, you know, mixed up some things. So, a lot of the more popular things that we know of just came from something else and the slight iteration that made them a powerful thing.

Yeah. And you know what? To add to that, it's not possible for something not to come from something else. True. Look look at look I mean, you know what? Where did a table come from? Where did a drop of water come from? Hydrogen and oxygen. You you break things down into you know, John Williams he's a high and that's the thing if you if you understand that and then you understand to be a highly inspired person you have to take in all these things and put it into your work. I mean a rock band coming out with a a rock album today would not be able to do so if it was original because they'd have to you know, okay well you can't use instruments cuz you didn't you didn't develop instruments. You can't listen to any existing rock music because that's not yours.

You can't listen to any music because you didn't create any of that. So you literally couldn't create anything because you have no reference. So nothing there is nothing in the world that comes from nothing. It always comes from something else.