Transcript
This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher show. Today on the James Altucher show. Sometimes I get these emails from people. Oh, I'm 23 years old and I don't know what my passion is in life. Is it too late for me? Am I a failure? And that's just so ridiculous. First off, maybe you're not really meant. We're not it's not like we were born and we're so different from the other trillion species on this planet that we have this god given passion. Each one of us is this unique fingerprint or snowflake or whatever that is meant to have this special purpose in the world. We're not we're not you know, it's much more important to just be relaxed and calm and be good to the people around you then have this overriding purpose. Jay is rolling. So I decided to do, an episode about how to find your passion. And when we were discussing this, it was Jay, audio engineer extraordinaire. Robin, my wife were talking about this, and Robin was mentioning how by the way, hello, Robin, my wife. We were talking about at first, you were mentioning, how, yeah, kids wanna know how to find their passion. And that's true, But I also said that even many people in their fifties who have been commuting to work for 30 straight years, sometimes they want a life change, or sometimes they get laid off, or sometimes something drastic that happens that forces them to make, you you know, these life changing decisions. People even in their fifties want to find out what their passion is and how to how to explore it, how to learn it, how to monetize it. And Jay said, yeah. Yeah. That's true too. Old people wanna find their passions. And I'm like, Jay, old people, I'm 52 years old now. So it's not like I'm walking around in a walker or anything, like but, yeah, I find my new passions all the time even in the late great fifties that I'm in. Right before moments from death of old age, and I still wanna do things I'm passionate about. Jay's trying hard not to laugh because he's in charge of the audio, but we'll we'll make him laugh. Meanwhile, I at first, do do sometimes I get these emails from people. Oh, I'm 23 years old, and I don't know what my passion is in life. Is it too late for me? Am I a failure? And that's just so ridiculous. First off, maybe you're not really meant. We're not it's not like we were born, and we're so different from the other trillion species on this planet that we have this god given passion. Each one of us is this unique fingerprint or a snowflake or whatever that is meant to have this special purpose in the world. We're not we're not you know, it's much more important to just be relaxed and calm and be good to the people around you than have this overriding purpose. Like, your purpose is to, you know, save the the, you know, the Amazon forest. If that's your if that's what you're good at and you could do it, then then great. But don't be stressed. If you don't have this amazing purpose or you don't know what it is right away. I'll tell you about a couple of times I have found different things I'm passionate about. And by the way, it's changed so much for me. Like, when I was really young, I was passionate about I don't know. I wanted to be a professor of computer science. Then I wanted to be a writer of novels. I remember, I I actually was going to graduate school for computer science, and I was away for the summer. I was with a bunch of friends, and I saw one friend of mine who was he had the classic, like, look of a writer, and he was always, like, writing in coffee shops. And this was around 1990. This girl that I had a crush on fell for him because she liked that whole writer thing. And suddenly, this is it. This is why I suddenly became really passionate about writing. So I started reading every novel I could get my hands on. Everyone was talking about all these I didn't take a single English course in my entire college career, and I knew nothing about any great works of literature. But I started reading constantly. I started writing every day. I started writing 3,000 words a day. I started doing this to the detriment of all my computer science classes. So within a year, I got thrown out of graduate school. There was many reasons, but probably the biggest one was that I was writing every day. And I wrote 4 novels, and I wrote dozens and dozens of short stories. And I'd love to find these novels, but they're all gone now somehow. I don't know what they were all saved online at some computer that doesn't exist anymore. And nothing got published. Not a single word I wrote got published. And this is 3,000 words a day, 365 days a year for at least I did that until I moved to New York City. I still continue writing every day, but not 3,000 words a day. But so I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of words that that was. But everything I wrote, I tried to get published. I would send out to publishers and agents. And for short the short stories I was writing, I would send out to magazines. Not a see, not only did nobody publish anything, my great classics like, let me see if I can remember one of the titles. One of the titles was The Prostitute, The Poor Novelist, the, oh gosh. I can't even remember the title of this classic book, that I wrote. Anyway, it was a it was a novel that I wrote an entire 3 days, and that didn't get published. Another one was, I called it the book of Orpheus, which is such a pretentious title. That didn't get published. That was my first one. Then I wrote a a novel a historical novel about King David. I called that the book of David being very original. It was right after I wrote the book of Orpheus. That one didn't get published. Then I wrote, gosh. I can't remember. I think I wrote How to How to Win at Video Games. That was the name of a novella, and that didn't get published. So here's what I did. I chose myself. Even in 1994, I did this. I printed everything up on a it's almost the size of a mini pad. Like, I it's it was supposed to, fit in the palm of your hand, and you could read it in one direction and then turn it upside down and read it in the other direction. So I printed that up on the copy machine at my work. I'd already been thrown out of graduate school, and I was working as a computer programmer. But I wrote the program in the 1st week, and then I kept telling everybody, oh, it's really hard. I'm still working on it, and I never had to do any programming again. I just focused on writing. And I printed up, like, a couple hundred copies of this mini book of a bunch of my short stories and 2 novellas. And I went to every bookstore in town. This was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I went to every bookstore in town, and I let them sell my little booklet for 25¢. So that was my first self published booklet. I think the overall booklet was called How I Saved the World for Mutual Assured Destruction, and that was the novella that with that title, you'd read one direction, then you turn it upside down, and you and you'd read How to Win at Video Games in the other direction. And I sold out about 80 copies of that book for 25¢ a copy. I put my phone number in the back of the book. One person called me, and we had a a a I don't remember the conversation at all. But that was my first self published book. And then I decide, you know what? I need connections. And so I I was watching TV. Whenever I wasn't writing, I was usually watching TV, and I was obsessed with both MTV and HBO. And so I figured I wanna work at HBO, and I applied for a job there. And I also applied for a job at JPMorgan, the bank. JPMorgan offered me a job for 80,000 a year salary, which would have for me at the time, I was making $27,600 a year as a computer programmer. So I would have gone from 27,000 and change to 80,000 a year. HBO also offered me a job. They offered me 40,000, half of JPMorgan. I took the HBO job because I was very serious about my, quote, unquote, passion, which was writing. I thought I could go to HBO as a computer programmer. And then once I was in the big city, magic would happen. And the next thing you know, I would have a TV show on HBO, and I'd write all the novels I want. And everything would get published, and it would be amazing. It didn't work out that way. I ended up, one thing led to another. I tried to do I got obsessed with doing a TV show for HBO. I, I had a big attempt at that. That's another story. Then I tried another TV show. I'll talk about that for a second. I I had a friend of mine who was, very funny. She was a a woman. That's why I use the pronoun she. And I told her, put an ad in the paper and say, you wanna go on a blind date. And at the time, people put ads in newspapers, not, like, now. This was 1995. And so I said, put an ad in the pay or 1996. Put an ad in the paper and say, you wanna go on a blind date. And so a 100 people responded, and she picked the location for the date. Now what we did was a couple hours before her big date, we wired up the whole restaurant. We've had video cameras everywhere. We had audio everywhere. We were sitting on either side of the table she was at, and we had audio there. And we videotaped the entire date. The date didn't know. I call we called this blind date. And and just insane things were happening. We we videotaped 2 of these so called episodes. And on one of them, the guy the entire date, the guy was wondering whether he was and he was confiding in her. He was trying to figure out if he was straight or gay. So he was kind of dating both sides, you know, men and women to sort of figure it out. And then the next episode, the guy actually got a phone call from his wife in the middle of the date. And so and then he still continued the date, and we had a release form for him to sign at the end. He wouldn't sign the release form until Amy, my friend, agreed to have would agree to have sex with him, which she didn't agree, so I think. And, then we videotaped it. We pitched it around. We pitched it to HBO. Everybody loved it. But then as became common whenever I pitched a TV show, nobody ever called me back ever again. And I even worked at HBO, so that was frustrating. But then I got obsessed with being an entrepreneur, then I got obsessed with being an investor, then I got obsessed with writing again and podcasting, playing poker. I became so obsessed with poker. I played it for 365 days straight, including the day my oldest child was born. I was there for the birth, but then left afterwards to play poker. So passions change. But one thing I realized, if you wanna find your passion, there's a couple of techniques I realized. One is figure out what you are passionate about at age 13 or 12, kind of this critical age in bet right in between childhood, puberty, adulthood. Figure out what you were interested in, what you were passionate about then, and see how it aged. So for instance, if you're interested in sports, but now you're this, you know, overweight, out of shape guy or or lady in her forties or fifties, and, obviously, you're not gonna be a professional athlete, maybe your passion aged from sports into fantasy sports. And you could start a fantasy sports league or or bet on it or write a blog about it. I picked that as an example because Matthew Berry, one of the first guests on my podcast in 2014, he went from being a Hollywood screenwriter to hating it, to switching his interest, to going back to sports. He got he got obsessed with fantasy sports. He started blogging about it. And now he's the number 1 or the only anchor ESPN has ever hired for fantasy sports. And even when I walk down the street with this guy, people recognize him and thank him for all his fantasy sports picks and and so on. So he's he was a great example of seeing how his passion aged. I know for myself, I was always interested in writing, and my passion aged. So I didn't ended up not writing novels, but I wrote, you know, a whole bunch of nonfiction books about a variety of subjects. Another thing I was always interested in even as a kid was investing, then I lost interest in it. But back in my thirties, I became interested and I'm obsessed in it again. So, again, a lot of the things I became interested in as an adult, later on, I realized, oh, they've aged in different ways with me, and I became interested in the way the ways in which they aged. So for another thing, I use always used to, I always used to interview people. When I was in 6th grade, I was really interested in politics. So what I would do is I would call up a whole bunch of politicians. I called up from the president of the United States on down. I called up every politician I could think of. I remember I spoke to senator Bill Bradley, who was a senator from New Jersey at the time. I spoke to, this guy, Jim Wright, who was a congressman who became the speaker of the house. I spoke to Rex Stouten, who was the chief usher of the White House. I couldn't get a hold of president Jimmy Carter, who was the president at the time, but I spoke to his the chief usher. I spoke to all these governors, senators, congressmen. I visited and how did I speak to them? I called them up, and I basically said, I'm writing a column for my local newspaper. It was called The Home News, my local newspaper. And would they speak to this kid? I was 12 years old. Would they speak to me? And at one point, the editor in chief of The Home News actually called me, and I had never spoken to this guy before. And I had nothing to do with them, period. And he said to me, you can't say you're writing a column for the Home News. You're not there are people with PhDs trying to write columns for our newspaper. You're a 12 year old kid. You can't say you can't call up the president of the United States and say you're writing a column for the home news. But he said, I'll give you a tour of the home news, which he did. And it was, it was fun, and I kept calling people and saying that. Anyway, all my interviews were published in a column and in a big article in another newspaper, and I got $75 for it, my first paying gig. It was the Southpoint Brunswick Central Post. But that is the first time I started interviewing, and it was a lot of fun. How did that passion age? Well, of course, it aged by me eventually doing a podcast, I don't know, 33 years later. So you'll you'll if you look back, you'll find your passions age and and might intersect with things you're interested in now. Another way to find your passion is go to the bookstore. Walk around at the different sections. Is there any section where you would feel comfortable reading all of the books in that section? And if it is, chances are there's probably some way to monetize or or explore that interest. You know, look at someone like I've had recently on the podcast, Dan Carlin, who has his own podcast, Hardcore History, which I think actually gets the most downloads per episode of any podcast in the world right now. And Dan Carlin's not a historian, but he's he's been fascinated since he's he was a little kid about history. And he was always talking to his family about all these weird historical things and interests and different perspectives than you read in the usual history textbooks. And finally, his mother-in-law, as he put it, was so sick of him telling all these stories around the dinner table. She said, why don't you start a podcast? And he said, well, I'm not, a historian. I can't do it. And then it was like a light, sort of appeared in his head, and he realized he nothing can stop him from starting his own podcast and and telling the history stories that are not in our usual not the stories usually told in our history textbooks. And he he started his own history podcast. Now he makes a living essentially being a historian. Although as he constantly reminded me in our podcast, he's not a historian. And yet his his his history episodes are more, I don't know, more interesting to me than any history textbook has has ever been. So there's so many examples out there of people who kind of reinvent themselves by sort of being reinvigorated by finding out what their new passions are. And that's and, again, at any point, you can find a passion, you can explore it, and you can potentially monetize it like Dan Carlin does it with his podcast. I've done it throughout my life by either investing or starting a company. Like, I started several companies around, my interest in investing. I started a company around my interest in technology. I started a podcast. I've now written books that have been profitable for me, and, I don't know. What do you so I just so I'm I'm doing an experiment here too. I'm doing a podcast where I tell a story. Any other stories, Robin, or did that you know of that that I could tell? Or or I know your interest is you're reading books constantly about parenting, and we're planning on doing episodes about that because we between us, we have 5 kids. And, you know, I see you all the time. You're essentially obsessed with parenting, which I'm not. And you could just look at my kids and as an example of that. And, no, I'm just I'm being hard on my kids. But any other Well stories or I think that, you know, it's like with our kids at their ages, it's a question about what is their passion because we want them to be happy. So I've sort of been focusing on that. When when you were a kid, did you have a passion? And I was just thinking about that. Horses. Yeah. You were in rodeos. How old were you when you first entered into a a rodeo? High school. So probably my freshman year. And so did you, like, practice? How how often did you go, like I don't know. What do you call it? I rode every day. Horse you went everyday horseback riding? Yes. Because that's just what I did. And what would you would you practice, like, jumping over these things? I did, but my mother did not want me to do that. I was not allowed to do that, but I loved it. You did it anyway. I did it anyway. Who cares about your mom? And then and then did you practice, like I've seen you do all these, like, rope tricks. Did you practice those? Yeah. I did. Did you have, like, a tutor for us? No. I didn't have a tutor. My my mother, who is professional rodeo, so she taught me. Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. She's one of the first women in in PRCA. What's the what's the PRCA? Professional Rodeo Association. What's the c? Professional Rodeo. And cowboy or cowgirl? Yeah. I think so. I I don't know. And so look at that. And so okay. So you had a passion and you were you were interested in it. What else were you passionate about as a kid? Well, let's see. Much I I loved, art, and that was something that I carried through, because I came became a hairstylist and trained, you know, in doing color. So that was my, I guess, hair was the muse that I used to also with art. I see. You you you do art all over Yeah. This house that we live in. So I had a house or an apartment in New York City with basically no objects in it. I was just coming off of this two and a half year period where I threw away all my possessions and was living in Airbnbs. Then I got an apartment. I had nothing in it. You moved in. And suddenly, one day, I left. There was nothing in it. I came back, and I thought I was in the the wrong apartment. There was there was stuff everywhere. There was, like, art from, like, every country in the world. There was your art. And you even been making art recently. Like, you did that thing with the the fabric that where you could if you rub your hand on it, it you could make all sorts of Yeah. Shapes and colors and and drawings. And then you frame that. And now people, whenever they come over our house, do they get, like, obsessed with these Right. With these things. So you're still you're still doing your your your passion has aged with you in in the venerable years of the fifties as as Jay would put it. You're an old woman now. So it's a creative I've been I've always been a creative person. So I think a lot of my creativity has been with how to manage kids. So that's sort of where a lot of my Like, hang them upside down outside of that window. What do you mean what do you mean your creativity is how to manage kids? What what creative thing will you do managing your kids? Well, you have to be creative and figure out because each one of them, you know, is different. So you have to be able to, you know, manage that. And you have to be come up with something unique for each one of them and and how to deal with all the the issues that that arise. But what's an example? Well, let's see. So with, you know, with the girls, you know, boys boy problems, you know, problems with their friends. And I've seen you deal with that. Like, every situation. It's like they have a new particularly girls, and I have 2 daughters. You have 2 daughters. So we both see this. And it's it's as if they have a new situation every single day with friends, particularly after a period with friends, boyfriend. Somebody was talking about somebody else. Right. And but then they heard the other person talking about it. And now that everybody all all of them are upset Right. And they're crying. Not always crying, but and and you It seems to happen all at once too because they're all they have the same cycle. So it's like Actually, you might know this, but I don't. Do all 4 of our girls, do they have are they on this other cycles synced, particularly when they're all living under the same roof? Well, if they live with us altogether, yes. They that typically, that happens, I think. Did that happen? Do you know if it actually been happening? I don't know if that happened because I'm I'm not keeping track of that. But there are apps for that now, which I just found out about, which was interesting to keep, you know, their cycle. So I was like, wow. I need that so that I know when I can approach them. So Without getting Right. Without getting yeah. You you you don't even wanna deal with your own daughter having PMS. So that that explains a lot. But, I'll tell you the craziest thing I ever had was passionately interested in. This was around, like, 8th grade, and I got passionately interested in meditation. And I didn't wanna tell my parents because I thought it was against their religion, so I was ashamed to tell them. But I would skip school and as much as possible, and there was this field in back of my house. I would I would I would run across this field, this farmer's field, and then this bus went straight from the highway and back in that field to New York City. I go into New York City, and there was this kind of meditation group, and I would just sit and meditate with them all day. And then at night, I would meditate, and I would I would in the morning, I set my alarm for 4:45 AM, and I would meditate for, like, an hour. I don't know. I think I thought I was gonna get, like, psychic powers from this. That was, like, my initial goal, and I did this for about 3 years, this obsession. But for me also at age into a kind of as, as an adult, I I don't always meditate, but, I I had my own kind of more mature meditation practice than all the BS that's constantly taught in you know, I kind of researched it enough as a kid. And then even later, that I have my own version of a meditation practice as opposed to falling for any of the garbage that people oh, pay $5,000 to get your mantra. And by the way, it's secretly the same. Don't tell your mantra to anyone because it happens to be the same mantra we're telling every single other person that we're charging $5,000 for. There's so much BS out there in kind of this cultish self help BS stuff. But since I've been doing since I was a kid, I had a more, you know, mature way of looking at it. I don't monetize my interest in this at all, but it's something we that became much more easily a life practice for me rather than being fooled into into something else like so many people are. Was that, before puberty or after that you guys That was right after puberty. I know that because I literally thought I would start meditating and have psychic powers and could read girls I want why do I wanna have psychic powers? So I could read girls' minds to see if they like me or not. But it was pretty I didn't need psychic powers to to determine that. It turned out none of them liked me. Like, I would I remember even in 8th grade. I remember one time I don't know why we were learning this, but in gym, they they were learning square dancing. Why would they teach square dancing to a bunch of Jews in gym in the northeast? I have no idea. But I remember no girl wanted to physically touch me. And so they would all whisper to each other. You don't just hold your hand, like, 3 inches from his. You don't have to actually touch him. Just have the motion as if you're touching him. No girl like me. One time, she's in 10th grade. I asked a girl out, and, literally, she started immediately running. She started running as fast as possible away from me. Another time I asked the girl out, she also ran, but also yelled at the same time, not in a 1000000 years, which I viewed as an ounce of hope that maybe in a mill she didn't rule it out completely. She said maybe in a 1000000 years, something like that. So I was very optimistic. Wow. But meditation certainly did not help me, get a girlfriend. I think though with what you did with your meditation, it was a coping mechanism that you used through your life, and you still use it, which I think is really very healthy. You know? Coping mechanism? Well, because when you go through puberty, and you, you know, some some people turn to drugs or alcohol or or something. And it's and it's a time when I think you actually go through puberty that you you find what your coping mechanism is. So for instance, mine was riding horses all the time. So that was my way of of being alone or just with my horse, peace. And and and and now when I go ride a horse, I I can smell it. I love the the stables. I love the way everything smells, and it calms me down. So when you were a little kid and so this was after puberty and, you know, your mom was I know your mom was strict in other ways. You probably weren't allowed to have a boyfriend or whatever, or at least maybe you were. Maybe you had constant boyfriends, but you never told me about it. But, am I right in saying that your mom was strict and wouldn't let you know that? Very strict. Right. I couldn't go out on a date. Right. So this was maybe, like, an escape. Not only in this other thing, but let me ask you a question. Is it true, girls often experience their first orgasm while riding a horse? Did you ever get, excited while riding a horse? Because the way you're about to go with that. No. Alright. I was just say I was just asking. I figured the podcast When did you hear that? Is like a truth is like a truth serum. Yeah. Everybody has to answer the truth. It's like when Scott was on our friend Scott Cohen was on the podcast, and he was talking about this company he, was involved in and helped helped start and helped, you know, move forward, which was a, erectile dysfunction drug. And I was able to ask him, well, did you ever use it? Yeah. And he had to answer the truth, which was yes. He tried it out. But, so I had to ask you that. But, I I remember one time, I I I think a lot of times, passions and interests, particularly as a kid, are escape mechanisms Right. Because you're not able to, fully indulge in what you might be interested in socially. You know, I found the people who are, like, the most social in high school, they weren't they didn't necessarily have these weird outside interests. And, like, I had you know, like, there was one point. So here I was in the in the eighties, this little kid, again, white Jewish northeastern kid, and I got obsessed with breakdancing. And I because, again, I thought maybe, a, I loved it as an art form. I just thought it was so interesting to watch. And and, b, I thought I would meet girls this way, which, of course, did not happen as usual. I didn't meet any girls throughout all of high school, but I got really obsessed with becoming a good breakdancer. So I found some kids, who would give me lessons, and I gave them, like, $10, and they gave me lessons for an entire summer. And then I found other friends near my hometown where we would we would just hang out and practice all day, and I got obsessed with it. And, again, it doesn't really age well for particularly for me. Like, it's not like I'm ever gonna do it professionally, but some days I do it for exercise. I I definitely it's gonna sound alright. I definitely breakdance every single day, but now just for exercise. It's the main way I get exercise. I do too. I think when I was in high school, you know, I Break dance together. Not break dance, but I dance just in front of the mirror or something. You know? And and I still do that when I'm stressed or if I wanna just relax. I'll just dance. It's it's very meditative. I think all these things, we just the coping mechanisms is a form of meditation. So it's good to pick up those sort of good habits when you're when you're young and you wanna create that environment for your kids during that time. One thing I always think is important is once you have a passion and that something you're interested in, you know, there's you have 2 choices. 1 is you just 1 or 3 choices. 1 is you ignore it because it's not, like, the cool thing to do or or you don't think it'll if you're a kid, you don't think it'll get you into college. Or if you're an adult, you don't think there's any money there. Both of those ideas are wrong, by the way, but often people will avoid their passions because they're afraid of something. And, the other things you you could do it, but not try to learn, not try to be better at it. Like, you could have been interested in horseback riding, but never really wanted to get better. But you chose to to learn how to get better and eventually, you know, kind of measure yourself by performing in rodeos and so on. And, you know, so, like, one interest of mine, kinda right after the breakdancing one, was I had always I knew the rules to chess, but I wasn't a chess player. And so I was 16 going on 17, and the chess club in my school, it they were missing a player. They were go doing an away game, in some town a couple towns away. They were missing a player, and so they asked me to play on what's the bottom board, the worst player on the team. And so I barely knew the roles. I went to play, and I won the game. And there was suddenly validation. Like, every all the other kids in the chess team were like, oh, man. That's great. You won. And I felt, like, good about myself. And so I started reading chess books, and I got obsessed. And I started I and and I started to learn. Okay. This is what you do when you have a passion. You read every book you could find. You watch videos if you can. You you play or do it as much as you can. You get lessons from professionals. So so I took lessons from, a guy who was one of the best players in the world when he was younger, another person who became the US chess champion. So I took all these lessons and gradually and and not gradually. Very quickly, I got very good because I was taking all these lessons. I was reading all these books. I was playing in every tournament I could play in. And within about a year and a half, I was, the junior champion of my state. And that I didn't become a professional chess player, obviously, but having that on my resume, I think, helped me get into college, grad school, helped me get a bunch of jobs. You know, so there's always different ways. If you get really good at something, anything, there's always ways you could turn it into something useful, either directly or indirectly in your life. You could use it to for instance, with horseback riding, I'm sure you've used it to make friends. I'm sure you've used it to network with people. Well, actually, I was just thinking, probably, my skills of parenting came from training my horse or, you know, with all the animals because I love animals. So I think that was probably the beginning of my, you know, Your parenting style? Parenting style. Well well okay. So tell me an analogy between, how you would train a horse and how you'll train a kid. Well, basically you're a great mother, and all your kids love you. So and I've seen the results. So whatever analogy you say is gonna be a great analogy. Well, it all really comes down to trust because, you know, when training a horse, you you really have to get the trust first with that horse because you become a partner when you're on that horse, and he has to really respect you. And and you have to, actually let them know, you know, who's in charge. I do let my kids know that. I mean, I did in the even now I do, but I've backed off a lot since they've been, you know now they're young adults, but, they had to respect you and, but they know that they can trust me. And they know that that I would never hurt them. They know that, I always have their best interest at heart. So I think a lot of that is is just in being consistent. How do you get the trust of a horse though? And and how does that translate into gaining trust with the, kid? Well, it's just, spending time with them. So, you know, I think it's important to spend time with your kids. So with a horse, when you were younger I spent a lot of time with my horse. Even when you were riding. Right. I would go out there and you're I'm feeding the horse, so I take care of him. I groom him. I talk to him. I you know, it's just funny because he was like my best friend. I mean, I had many horses, but each one of them, they they were like my best friend. So, they they really liked me. You know? Sometimes they would get in trouble, you know, because they would bug me off or something. What do you mean bug you off? Well, they would kick me off. They would just throw me off. And then So that was not fun. Okay. So when they did that, what did you do? How did you he he Well, they they, you know, got in trouble. They had time out. So what does that mean? Like, what would you say? What would you do? Well, that means well, first, I'd have to go catch him because they'd run off because they knew they were in trouble. But I take him back to the, the stable and so the thing is is, like, if I couldn't catch him, I couldn't do anything. If they did something, they tried to kick me off or buck me off, I would have to manage it right then and there. I couldn't correct the horse if it, like, if I caught him down the road because he wouldn't remember what he did. Right. So okay. Well, the children are like that too. So, like, if they do something wrong, you've got to correct them right there. But I'm curious about the horse. Like, so let's say you're sitting on the horse and it it does something, you know, it tries to kick you off, but it fails, but it did something bad. What would you do? Well, each horse was different. So sometimes I would turn them and and he'd have to go in a circle just so that he I was able to get control over him at that point. So the horses are huge. Right? So you have to make sure that you're in control and not them. So you would, like, pull back on the reins I would pull twist a little? Oh, I would pull towards myself, and I I would turn from 1 with the yeah. Just turn them So what's the equivalent with the kid? So what was what? What's the equivalent? Well, the equivalent is is having them, you know, stand there. You go down to their level. And then you beat them. No. But you you know, you just have to you know, it depends on what age too. I mean, like, when they were really little, of course, I'd have to hold them. They'd cry. I'd have to hold them. They'd wanna leave. You can't do that. It's just all different levels of of parenting at different times and different situations because when they're when they're just walking and and and children, you know, small, you want them to listen to you. Otherwise, they could run out in the street and and get killed. So it was really important. So, like, so, like, for instance, a kid might one of your kids might wanna just rush out in the street, and you say no. That's bad. And they still wanna they still try to rush out in the street when you're not looking, and then you catch them. Right. So What do you do right then? Well, so what? My kids didn't do that. Only because I trained them from the time they were walking that if I said no, you know, they they it took me a while for them to not do something because they really wanted to keep doing it. But Yeah. So when they disobey to hold on. No. I couldn't trust them to the point that point. I mean, I'd always hold on to them or you know, because I knew they were not able to listen. But once they were, you know, you know, I don't know how 5, 6, 7 years old, they could understand. And, if something did I mean, I was always around them, but if they did go towards the street, I would say freeze and they would they would have to freeze. I mean, they would freeze. So I knew that that was a word that I said freeze, they would freeze. And I used that many times. But if it I did it. You you there was probably some times though very in the beginning where they disobeyed that, and I'm just curious how you trained. And that would have happened inside a park or inside my home or something, but not I would have never trusted that to happen in a busy intersection, let's say, you know, because I wouldn't it was too risky. How did they learn that freeze there would be there would be Consequences? Consequences. Yes. Because there were always consequences if they didn't do it. You know? Like, what what a consequence would be? Would be With your horse, it was you would you would pull them back and go in a circle. Then they would come in. I'd have to put them in time out, and or they wouldn't depending on their age, they weren't you know, they had a privilege taken away. They couldn't, yeah, they couldn't go to a party or they or they, you know, had to stay home inside all weekend, whatever their age appropriate. So so and what's interesting is because this this started off about talking about passions and what happens to them Mhmm. Later on, is that every area you get expertise in, it has it's it's special to be an expert in something. You learn things that are beyond what you would learn if you simply like, if you just simply like baseball and like watching baseball games, you never really become, let's say, an expert on baseball. If you don't really study the game, if you don't really, you know, read books or read all the analytics or whatever, you never become an expert. It's okay. You you you you enjoy it throughout life. There's nothing wrong with that. But when you become an expert in anything, it kind of tinges every area of life after that. Like, the things you learned by becoming an expert enough to participate in a rodeo, you're able to apply that to your relationships later. Like, you mentioned your kid relationships, but I know you apply it to your husband wife relationships as well, this this sort of thing. I'm I'm a well trained husband at this moment. And and it's the same thing, like, again, when when I was obsessed with, like, chess or investing or writing, all of these things, whether I monetize them or not, different things that I learned on the course of becoming an expert or or mastering these areas have been incredibly useful to me later in life. Because I you could take anything that I, I'm sure, any of you were interested in when you were younger and see the parallels between that and what you're what you're doing, you know, later on in life. And, for instance, you've told me stories about how, when you started you owned your own. You started and owned your own hair salon. You had 70 employees. And a lot of the things you learned about interacting with customers I mean, I see you apply to this day just in your relationships, like how you talk to people, how you're vulnerable with people, then they're vulnerable with you. And it's like a natural instinct for you, which I think you probably learned from dealing with customers back then. Right. No. It's true. I learned so much, dealing with the public, and it was just a one on one. And, we were very expensive back then, and, you know, the clients expected a lot. And, but, you know, the situations that occurred during that time What's the craziest situation that anyone ever confided in you? And that's another thing too. You learn you you you're like a black hole. So you just you can hear everything, but you'd never tell that to anybody else. Until you're on the podcast 20 years later. And that's where, you know, gossip you know, we, you know, never did that. And that was important, I think, for these people. But, I think the craziest things and this happened more than once, where we would have to book, the the husband would call, and he wanted to book an appointment for his mistress. But then we knew that the wife was gonna be coming in, so we had to make sure, you know, we had a great receptionist. So she was able to manage all these like I said, it happened more than once. So, you know, we just could not put them in the same room or at the same time, and it was it's pretty interesting. How many instances of people cheat either men or women were of people cheating did you see in while working in a, basically, a very public facing social company like a hair salon? I mean, it it wasn't super common, but it was common enough that it was like, wow. I can't believe this is going on. It was basically a function of your business to kind of manage Yeah. One of the functions of your business was to to to help juggle this for Right. Either the men or the women. Right. No. More men or was it more women? Men. Yeah? So but, like, women wouldn't come in and confide in you that, oh, I don't know what to do. I'm No. I'm having this of affair. I don't know whether to leave my husband or not. No. Wasn't as kind of And most of my clients were women too and, never never had that situation. So so, again, finding your passion, check out what you're interested in when you're 12, 13, 14 years old, and see how it's aged through now. Another thing is go you you can't you can't find out, by the way, you're passionate about something until you do something. So I never was able to see I'll just use chess as an example. I was never able to say, oh, I'm passionate about getting great at this until I started actually playing games and tournaments and so on. Stand up comedy, I would never have realized I was passionate about it. I mean, I was always a fan, but I never realized I was passionate about it unless I actually went up on stage a bunch of times and did it. Entrepreneurship, again, I never would have had a passion for it if I didn't try it. It's not like sometimes people say, oh, I wanna be an entrepreneur, and they've never done it. They don't realize how hard it is. You have to figure out simple ways to start something, to experiment with something, and and that could be the topic of another podcast, how to do these experiments. But you you can't you can't think your way to passion. You can't read your way to passion. You have to actually do something to be I firmly feel to be passionate about it. And that's happened for for every instance in my life. And then once you find what you're passionate about, you kinda have to do the passion as much as possible. You have to read about it. You have to study your own mistakes and failures, so you can keep improving. You have to get, let's call it, a coach or an instructor so that you that person helps you go over your your failures and and and helps you course correct so you can get better and better. And, you know, there's all sorts of skills you have to have. Like, you know, you have to be able to network well. You have to go where other people are doing the passion. You have to figure out how to test yourself and measure your your success. You have to figure out, what are all the micro skills of that passion were. So, like, for instance, if you're passionate about business, the micro skills are sales, marketing, ideas, execution, negotiating, and and and on and on. So you have to get good at all the separate micro skills. And, Robin, you were just raising your hand before. What did you wanna say? No. But it's interesting because I wrote this down. I think that sometimes what you're good at, like you said, it encourages you because you think, wow. I'm I'm getting all the validation, and it feels good. And so that's something that I think with kids, they if they're good at something and they wanna continue that, and with as an adult as well. But also being curious. You were always very curious. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's very curious. I think it's very important to ask questions and to do experiments. I mean, that's and I'm an entrepreneur. I've always been my whole life. And I think that's part of it is not is being able to take that risk and to not let something that you're afraid of stop you. I think that's the biggest thing that I could say is, you know, it is scary, but do it. Try it. Yeah. Even in small ways. Like, again, it's how do you construct like, I know a lot of people who have a a business idea. And what the first thing they wanna do is they wanna raise a lot of money. They wanna hire a bunch of programmers. They're gonna spend 2 years building the product and then release it. No. There's I'm sure I'm a 100% sure with every business idea, there's ways to experiment for Right. Little to 0 money, most likely zero money, and in very little time, and you could test out your idea. You could do your idea in some small way. I had this conversation with Tony Robbins, actually, years ago, where he told me about a time he was teaching a group of marines how to shoot better, how to aim more accurately. And he had no idea. He had never shot a gun himself. So he interviewed a bunch of people. First off, he did start shooting and practicing for himself. Then he interviewed a bunch of instructors to learn how they did it. And then what he would do is, in this one group of marines that they were testing his methods out, he put the target only 1 foot away. So, of course, they all hit a bull's eye. Then he moved it 2 feet away. They all hit a bull's eye. Then he moved it 4 feet away. They all hit a bull's eye. 8 feet away. Bull's eye. And, finally, you know, all the way against the wall, like, 60 feet away, he quickly got them to have the highest scores of any other group being trained through this, Bring the target as close as possible. And that's how you can experiment and start getting better in a very nonthreatening way. And you can feel that validation. You can get excited about learning. You could learn from your mistakes. You could kind of adjust. You know? Oh, I'm leaning too much this way. If that's at one foot away, it's gonna certainly be at 60 feet away. So it was a it was I find that analogy to be useful for That is great. Entrepreneurship or for anything you wanna learn. Like, if I wanna learn to to be, let's say, a a public speaker, you know, there's ways to try public speaking in, you know, a a Friars Club event or some other kind of, public speaking event that's intended for practicing, public speaking or get a group of your friends together and and and try to teach a little cla*s. You don't even have to call it, like, talking. So so there's with anything you're doing, there's always ways to experiment rather than rather than say, I can't do that or listen to the or listening to people. Like, if I'm interested in sports, it's easy it's easy for someone to say, you can't do anything on sports. You're 52 years old, and you've never done sports before in your life. Well, maybe there's experiments I can construct that will get me more and more involved in the sports that I'm interested in. It's all your story. It's all what you believe inside of your your head. Really, I mean, you could see somebody or your kids that you're like, oh, they're so amazing, and they can do all this stuff. But if they can't see that, their perspective is totally different. They're not gonna do it. So it's it's it's what you what movie you're seeing in your mind. So with Tony Robbins, you know, bringing the, you know, for for the rifle shooting or whatever, they're seeing themselves successful. Right. So and he's, like, taking it out further and further. So Right. If they could do it at 1 foot, there's no reason they can't do it at further. 2 feet. If they could do it 2 feet, there's no reason they could do it 4. You're right. Yeah. It's a good technique, but it applies to anything. It applies to to chess, business, investing, writing. There's so many ways to practice writing no matter what whether you like fiction, nonfiction, writing books, writing stories, writing articles. There's so many ways to practice. And so I think with kids too, I mean, if you're a parent and you see your kids, you know, doing something that's very good and and they are enjoying it, it's maybe something to encourage them or create the space for them to allow to do it. You know what I mean? Allow them to do it. Well, I'll give an example with one of your daughters, my stepdaughter, Sarah, okay, who's was struggling to find she kinda knew. She kinda was thinking her way to interest. Like, she maybe she was interested in esports and video games. Maybe she was interested in different types of social media. And then one day, we gave her, again, this is a matter of doing versus thinking. We gave her ping we got some a friend of mine, Wally, who's been on Wally Green, who's been on the podcast. He's a great ping pong professional. Wally gave her some ping pong lessons, and she was, like you know, and she's slightly on the spectrum. And we saw her light up, or I saw her light up in a way that I had never seen her light up before. Exactly. And so we once you once an experiment works, you double down on it. So we started giving her weekly, then twice a week, then 3 times a week Right. Ping pong lessons. Now she even works at the ping pong club. And she's she in a year, she's gotten great. Like, she's I've been playing ping pong all my life. She's better than me at ping pong. And she's on her way to play in tournaments, and it's very exciting for her. And it was a way for her to build a whole social network and subculture that that that welcomes her and and loves her and she loves. And her self esteem is is just great. I mean, it's just really amazing. So sometimes you just have to try lots of things as well. And and and I always advise people write down 10 ideas a day. Write write down 10 things you may or may not be interested. Maybe you are, maybe you are. You don't even know yet. And then for each one, the next day, you could write 10 things, 10 ways to experiment with trying this. Like, if you're interested in going horseback riding, what are 10 research, what are 10 places you could do horseback riding? Or if if you're interested in, baseball, what are 10 ways you could take your interest in baseball and and pursue it rather than just watching baseball? Right. Or if you're interested in business, what are 10 businesses you could start? Or or take a an existing business like Google or Amazon. What's what are 10 ways Amazon can improve their business? Get that idea muscle going. Or or for me, if I'm interested in stand up comedy, what are all the micro skills I need to learn? And then how can I practice each one of them? Or how can I learn to be better at each one of them? Write them down and then start doing them. So, anyway, this is this was an experiment. Me telling a story or 2 about how I found my passion as both as a kid and as an adult. I don't think it's ever too late. You could be 90 years old. I just read an article, actually, this morning. I don't I didn't tell you this. I read an article about this woman who started doing stand up comedy at the age of 81, and she's 88 now. And she says people are constantly telling her she can't do it. But she just goes and does it. She performs all over the the the city where she lives. And and people love her. So she created this whole new career at the age of 81. So it's never too late That's right. No matter what you're interested in, to find a passion, to reinvent yourself, and to monetize it. We didn't talk as much about monetizing it, but that could be the subject of another storytelling based podcast. And if you have any questions, you can find me on Twitter at j altiture, or you can find Robin at Twitter at r altiture. And ask questions or tell your own story about your passion or ask how to monetize a different passion. We'll address that on a future podcast. But feel free to start asking questions about these things. And, also, just let us know if you enjoyed this podcast. Thanks so much for listening. And, Robin, thanks for It was fun. I had fun. Thanks for joining me the first time you're on the podcast. I know I interrupted you a lot, but I'll do it less and less in the future. So don't tweet. Stop interrupting your own wife because I know someone's gonna tweet that. And, Jay, thank you for calling people in their fifties old to kick this off, and thanks for listening.
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