December 29, 2020 • 54 mins
This week, Alex tackles the topic of why he dropped out of school - what it meant for him and his family, the reasons behind it and the things he missed out on because of his choices. Alex is joined by Leigh Abramson, who's another "dropout" of sorts - after a successful career as an attorney, things still didn't feel right - so she quit her job and became a writer. We cover all the big questions: when is it okay to quit something, especially when you've poured time, effort and money into it? When should you see a career or schooling path through? And how do you know if it's the right to completely reinvent your life?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is Alex, and I have not been in
a classroom since ninth grade. No, no, alright, No, it
will be alright forever. No, we are alright, No, will
be alright forever. I have two parents who are very
(00:26):
very for chasing your dreams. You know. My mom did
a couple of years of college, ultimately met my dad,
and my dad kind of started working while my mom
raised us as as children. My dad, on the other hand,
actually dropped out of high school and helped support his
own family, like his parents and his brothers and sisters
by working for his father's company and uh and eventually
(00:49):
got a g e. D. And became a very successful
real estate agent. If you've listened to my other episodes
of the podcast, you'll hear more about that story. But
I want to focus on the education part because what
happened with me is I always liked learning. I think
learning is something that I've always loved, and it's something
that I'm very very passionate about. But I loved learning
about the things I liked more than the things I
(01:09):
didn't like. And my parents very much so picked up
on that towards seventh and eighth grade when they realized
I was really focusing all of my time on learning
about music theory and how to play certain chords and
and structure and songwriting. And I would focus so much
time the way that a doctor would focus on medical information,
(01:30):
or like a lawyer would focus on studying for the bar.
I was studying for the musical bar. I guess and uh.
And halfway through ninth grade, my parents, you know, we
had decided to move to Los Angeles and chase my
dream of being a musician, and I transitioned from regular
classroom traditional school I don't know if that's what it's called,
(01:52):
into online school, which was not by any means successful
for me. I I'm gonna call my mom out in
a good way. She was so good about logging in
for me so that my hours were all right. I know, Hey,
I'm really sorry pre Mavera online high school. This is
the truth. My parents were so good about helping me
(02:12):
be successful, but ultimately I failed a lot of those classes,
not because I wasn't testing properly, but because I just
wasn't showing up or doing any of the assignments. So
by the time that I actually had stopped going to school,
it was a very smooth transition into working full time
in the music industry, and my dad kind of embedded
in my brain this idea of you can make it happen,
(02:35):
you know, mentality, you have to just put in the work,
and and seeing him as a firsthand example of that
was always very easy for me to look at and
be like, oh, yeah, my dad's totally right because he
did it, you know. That was kind of my mindset
with everything. And so here I am ninth grade kind
of looking for a new way to have a career
without having a high school diploma, and then came my
(02:58):
way something that's very very special in California called the Chessie.
It is basically like the g E D on steroids,
but instead of passing and getting like whatever the g
e D Certificate is, you actually get like a diploma
equivalent certificate. So if I wanted to, I could go
to a university afterwards. And my parents always wanting me
to have you know, that education under my belt. They
(03:19):
were super supportive of that, and my fifteen to sixteen
year old girlfriend, Katie Vincent's mom actually paid for like
the books for me to study and like all of
that stuff. So shout out Genea Vincent, big love. You
help me get my diploma, shouts Mom and Dad. I
feel like I'm winning a Grammy, but I only got
like almost diploma, so uh, you know, and then I
(03:41):
at least for me, if you're a fan of me,
you kind of know where that story goes. I started
posting on social media and doing what I love and
chasing it relentlessly and not stopping that work, and I
found myself to a place where I'm a professional in
my field of work if I even want to call
it that. I just like making music for fun and
it pays my bills. Like that's where I am. And
so I am now almost ten years deep in my profession,
(04:04):
with all of the experience that I got to have
and being treated as an adult since I was fifteen,
and and now feeling like I've I'm very deeply rooted
into something that I truly love to do, and I
got to focus all that time. But I would be
remiss if I didn't say that sometimes I wish I was,
you know, getting drunk at prom off of like some
weird mixture of everybody's parents alcohol. Or if I said
(04:28):
I didn't get to go to college parties or or
spring breaks, or playing high school basketball, all of those things.
I do think about those things, and it kind of
all of the positives that came out of me dropping
out and chasing my dreams. It comes with a lot
of pros and it comes with a lot of cons.
I also look back at, you know, a lot of
people who ask me that question because I'm open about
my history with schooling, and they say, well, should I
(04:50):
go to school? Should I not go to school? And
I've always said, you know, other people as advice, don't
take me as the example. And if you don't necessarily
have a plan, and if you don't necessarily know, I've
always said you should go to school, you should go
to college. But there's also now so many factors that
I never put into my brain, you know, in terms
of student loans and and the cost of being of
(05:13):
going to school, and the percentage of people who actually
do the job that they went to school for, and
and a lot of people, especially my friends, you know,
they got their communications degree and it didn't do anything
for them for their job that they're at now. It's
really put it into perspective. So that got me thinking,
is dropping out the right idea? Is not going to college.
The right idea is staying in school because your parents
(05:37):
want you to a good idea And if it is
or it isn't, why is that? No? What's up everybody?
It's alex Iona here. This is let's get into it
my podcast where we talk about a ton of different topics.
Really nothing is off the table at this point, and
we want to talk about something. It's not the sexiest
I'm not gonna lie, not the sexiest topic, but it's
(05:57):
very very important, especially today we're talking about edgecation and
how important it is to go to college and chase
your dreams and if those things don't go together, how
important it is to make the right decision on which
one you want to do. So. I have two very
very diverse guests here that have different paths that we
can talk about and have open conversations with. The first
(06:19):
being a freelance writer whose work has appeared in numerous
publications including The New York Times, The Atlantic, Real Simple More.
But She attended Penn Law before working several years in
big law and clerking in the Southern District of New York.
She's currently toiling away on a brand new novel, You
Guessed It it's about a law firm. Her name is
(06:40):
Lee McMullen Abramson. Lee, it's very nice to meet you.
I just want to know how are you. I'm good,
Thank you so much. It's great to be here. You
guys can't see this, but Lee's got on as she
She's told me it's her daughters. I really think it's hers,
and she's just like a closeted Frozen fanatic. They're Frozen
themed headphones. They're the cool things I've ever seen. I'm
(07:03):
very happy, and you can be honest here on this podcast.
We're open. We're open and honest. The first episode I
talked about losing my virginity, so it's like nothing's off
the table. If those are yours, just just be proud
about it, you know. I will say that I'm very
happy to be wearing them. Okay, I was glad they
were available to me and they feel good. I like that.
You've got a little bit, you know, a little bit
(07:24):
of ownership of those also with me. You guys know,
she's one of my closest friends and I asked her
pretty much for help on anything. Uh, Karen or like man.
She is my wisdom tree. She is my off the
clock therapist as I'm going to call you. It's my
new title for you, because I have so many questions
for you. Karen Orleckman, how are you? I am COVID
good today? Is COVID good? Baby? That's all we can
(07:46):
ask for these days. Well, we're talking about education and
both of you guys have very very different paths in
which you guys chased your ultimate dream or you guys
followed you know, the career path that led you to
where you are, and we're gonna dive super super deep
into that. First, Lee, you and I are going to
talk about Dropouts Handbook because you are very very experienced,
(08:07):
as we're gonna learn in helping people find out how
to follow their truest self, even if it kind of
diverges off of the path that they originally were taking.
And then Karen, you and I are going to talk
about what might have been the concept of well, if
I had done this, Even for me, I have these
thoughts all the time, talking about if I had stayed
in school, if I had gone to college for something.
And then lastly, we are all going to kick it
(08:28):
and talk about how you can tell if the traditional
path or a new concept of a path is right
for you. We're gonna be cracking into all of that.
But before we get into that, I have a question
that I ask all of my guests and uh and
it is. It is a very very important question. What
have you been doing this week to improve yourself? This week,
I have been and this is gonna sound crazy, because
(08:49):
all of my recent improvements have been about health. This week,
I'm sitting next to a dozen of donuts, and I'm
learning how to to fully give myself the freedom and
not feel bad about doing things that make me happy.
Right now, it's a it's a Devil's Food cake, chocolate
frosted peanut doughnut. Right now, look at this thing. You
guys can see it. It's incredible. I'm gonna have a
(09:11):
bite of it, while Karen says hers, But mine, I
think is important because I've been very, very tough on myself,
but I feel very like bad, like I'm hard on
myself about it. So this week I've been focusing on
the mental aspect of saying, hey, this is okay, you
deserve a donut. If you want a donut, you deserve
a doughnut, and I'm gonna eat it. While Karen tells
me what hers is my self improvement this week is
(09:32):
that I'm actually doing absolutely nothing towards self improvement, and
so I'm giving myself a break and just kind of
to your point about the donuts, I'm just being where
I am right now, mm hmmm mm hmmm, because it's
it's a lot of pressure to feel like we need
to constantly be improving ourselves because there's underneath that is
(09:57):
a little bit of like, I'm not okay as I am, um,
and so this week I'm doing absolutely nothing. Karen, You're
on this podcast probably more than anybody else other than myself,
and so you always have something great. So I'm very
very happy that you are having a human moment and saying, hey,
sometimes you don't do anything to improve your life and
that's okay, and I like that. Now, Lee, the pressure
(10:19):
is kind of on because you're not on this podcast ever,
so you gotta come with something hot. I'm just kidding,
it's not it's okay if you don't. All right, well,
I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go with the baked goods
theme here because I have actually, um taught myself how
to make pies during quarantine I have been making pies.
(10:41):
I say it's like an activity to do with the children,
but more often than not, like it becomes just me
doing it by myself. And I have learned that the
secret to a good pie crust is vodka. Woh is it?
Just is it? Because if you have enough vodka, then
you forget how something tastes and you're just like, okay,
if you're drunk, it doesn't matter how you know, it's
(11:06):
something about how it the moisture of the flour and
the butter and makes the vodka in there and good
things happen. So it's it's only like four tables love that.
But but but yeah, so okay, I think I think
we're going to do it. We've done berries and peaches,
and I feel that I'm like making the most of
(11:27):
the seasonal fruit right now. That's good, that's very very
you know what, send one, you can send one my
way if you'd like. I'll I can be the tester
for that and we can have so well. I love
that I'm eating donuts. Karen's just kicking back, You're making pies.
We're having a good time. This is that's what this
episode is all about. It is about following whatever feels right,
(11:47):
speak of that. Let's get let's get into it. I
know it's weird that the show is called that, and
we called the show that because I say it all
the time. But let's get into it. Um, Karen, we're
gonna see you in a bit, Lee, it's time for
a little one on one. So you and I have
something in common. We both dropped out. You went to
a bit more school than I did. You did a
little bit more, but you dropped out of your chosen
(12:10):
career at the time to chase another goal. So tell
me a little bit about your dropout story. So I
went to law school, like a lot of people, because
I didn't know what I wanted to do. And after
I went right after college. And I think of law
school for a lot of people as a socially acceptable
(12:30):
procrastination technique where you have you get this degree and
everyone's excited that you're a lawyer, but um, you actually
haven't figured out what you want to do yet. So
I really liked law school. I found it interesting studying
famous cases and it's a lot of human interest stories.
(12:53):
So but once I got to a law firm, it
was a real rude awakening it was a lot of
reviewing documents in a conference room. I wore these like
rubber covers over my fingers so I wouldn't get paper cuts.
I think I was in the last like fully paper
document review. I think it's all digital now. But but
(13:14):
it was not glamorous and it was long hours and
I didn't feel very passionate about the work that I
was doing, so I left the law firm. I worked
for a judge, which was wonderful. I love that it
was such interesting stories and being in court, and I
thought that was that was wonderful. But that's that was
(13:35):
only a year. Uh, And when I went back to
the law firm, I started thinking really about what I
wanted to do next. I come from a creative family.
My father is an artist and my mother's a writer,
so for me going to law school is a bit
of a rebellion against them. When I was growing up,
I thought like, why can't my parents, you know, go
(13:56):
to offices and wear suits and like my friend parents
and my father was teaching drawing classes and there would
be like nude models there, and I thought this was
literally the most embarrassing thing that could happen to a person,
and I was like, when I grew up, I am
going to go to an office and wear a suit
(14:17):
and this is great. But I really had no idea
what that meant. I feel like, I feel like your
story is so the opposite of everybody. Like usually their
parents are like, you need to go to school and
be this, and they're like, no, mom, I want to
be an artist. Your parents were literally the opposite you.
You said you might be the first person in history
who's ever rebelled against their parents and went to more school.
(14:38):
I don't know if that's a thing. It's now a
thing thanks to you. Sorry, I'll let you continue. Yeah.
So I thought law school was the answer. I wasn't
going to be like my parents. But as I as
I was exploring more, I realized that what I loved
was writing. And there were certain aspects of law where
I get to write, but it wasn't as creative of
(15:00):
And actually the judge that I clerked for told me
when I was clerking, she was like, you're very wonderful
with the facts, Like I love when you write the
opinion section and the and the and the facts section.
You're good at telling the story. And that little comment
was sort of enough to make me feel like maybe
I could try doing this. So I started. Um, I
(15:21):
started working in the morning early and writing and submitting things,
and little by little I felt like there was something
there that wasn't just my imagination. And I also felt
that looking down the road of being a lawyer, it
wasn't it wasn't what I wanted ultimately, and I convinced
(15:42):
myself that it was better to be on the bottom
wrong of the ladder that you want to be on,
then moving up to the top of the ladder you
don't want to be on. So um, yeah, So finally,
you know, I've been practicing law for seven years. I
decided to stop and and give it a go, and
that that's that's what happened. But I still feel like
(16:04):
it's it's a transition that I'm almost still in even
a number of years later. Right, Okay, so let's let's
I want to dissect that a little bit. So, I like,
how much weight you don't give law school, But it's
a pretty heavy thing, like as as everybody knows, like
law school, it's like years and years of study and
hard work and you're balancing social life, you're balancing your family,
(16:27):
you're still trying to have fun. You're in your early
to mid twenties, You're you are spending all this money
for schooling, You're probably going through internships and not getting
paid for things. They're being wildly underpaid. And then most
people do that stuff so that they can eventually have
a very very nice paying job, a very nice salary.
Like you mentioned, they climb that ladder, they get to
(16:48):
the top of that ladder and they can go, Okay,
all of those you know, paper cuts and the little
rubber fingertips and and sitting and being told what to
do and not really having um your opinion being heard.
It's worth it now because of this having transitioned out
of that, do you what are your thoughts on that?
Do you feel like it was a waste? Was it
worth it to you? Do you regret spending all of
(17:09):
that time in that school, paying for that education, studying
time that you maybe could have been having fun, you know,
doing the quote unquote artists things since now you are
an artist. I don't I don't regret it. I mean,
the financial piece is hard to swallow. Yeah, that that
is definitely definitely true. But I do feel like I
(17:33):
was able to take things from that experience, even writing skills,
that that we're helpful, and also that it's now something
that I can write about that not everyone can write about,
and that and that's useful and and so in some ways, yes,
(17:54):
I like you think about the prom like I think, well,
what if I just started out writing, would I be
so much further along? And and and what if that?
And and I think it's you know, you just never
know how things would have worked out. So I try
to be really, you know, at peace with with that
decision of going to law school and taking the really
(18:17):
circuitous route. But but yeah, sometimes I think, well, what
if I had done it differently? And what was the
meaning of it? And and and you have to kind
of continually revisit that. At least I do absolutely, And
I mean I'm very very firm believer in the concept
of everything you've done, every every decision you made, every mistake,
every success lad you exactly to where you are, and
(18:38):
if you wanted something change, then it probably wouldn't lead
you to where you are now. So I don't ask
that question in the terms of thinking you did the
wrong thing at all. You obviously did the right thing,
because there are so many rewards about what you the
decision you made and writing and now UM and I
want to talk about those things you're right or now
and you're writing actually helps other lawyers transition away from
(18:59):
law when a not really speaking to them the same
way that it didn't really speak to you. What made you,
I guess identify like like you said, you know this
gave you this perspective you can write about things that
nobody else has written about. What what made you come
up with that idea to say, hey, maybe I should
write in a way that that could inspire other people
to do the same as me. So I have a
(19:21):
lot of lawyer friends and people I went to law
school with, and I felt that like a lot of
people were unhappy and thinking about ways to transition at
least out of a law firm into something else. And
you know, I talked to a lot of people about it,
and I noticed that there were a lot of people
(19:42):
who we're seeing like career counselors or are sending me
to different websites about UM transitioning for lawyers because it's
it's not the most transferable degree, uh that people think
it necessarily is. Because it teaches you a lot of
critical thinking. But if you want to go into a
(20:03):
different profession, you're still going to have to prove yourself
and and start kind of on the low end of
that profession because you haven't had the experience. I mean,
I interned in a magazine when I was in my
early thirties and extremely pregnant. I mean I was like
walking around with like college students and I was ten
(20:24):
years older than them and stuck out. Literally, how did you?
How did you power through those moments? I mean, I
know that, Like, I feel the same way, and I
know it doesn't have any you know, any comparison, but
I feel the same way when I'm a twenty four
year old man trying to make TikTok's with fourteen year
old kids, Like I feel like that, you know, And
so how did you? What did you tell yourself? Because
I think a lot of people feel like that, maybe, um,
(20:47):
you know, and my album The Gospel of twenty three,
I have a whole song that feels like that. You're
just like I feel old. I feel like an old person.
And and when you're like you said, you're you're like
extremely pregnant. By the way, That's my new favorite quote. Um,
when you're extremely pregnant and you're you're you're you're not
necessarily fitting in with all these other interns, but you're
following your passion. Well, how did you balance the emotions
(21:09):
of that, because I know, at least for me, I've
felt those I felt both like, man, I'm so much
wiser than all these people. That gives me the leg up,
and then also feeling like, man, I'm so much older
than these people. I feel like I don't fit in.
Maybe maybe it's too late for me. Mm hmm. I
think that as a writer and as a creative person,
I always think about something that Nora Ephron said, which
(21:32):
is everything is copy. So when I was like waddling
around to the copy machine, I would think, you know what,
like I could write about this and this is kind
of funny. Um. And I felt like it was an
experience and and I was going to have it because
I wanted to know what it was like to work
in a magazine and if I wanted to work in
(21:53):
a magazine as opposed to be freelance. And so I
was like, this is about what what I'm going to
take from this experience? Um, you know what I want
to take from it, and even if it's you know,
a little untraditional, then that's okay. But I think it's
a creative person always thinking like even your your your
most self conscious moments, even your most um really kind
(22:18):
of doubting moments, those kinds of things can actually make
for the most relatable creative expressions if you write about
those things, if you sing about those things, because everyone
feels that way, and if you are okay experiencing them
and expressing them that that that that will actually be
(22:38):
a worthwhile creative experience. Uh So I try to think
of it, well, what can I kind of turn this into,
even if it's many years down the road or um.
But I think that's helpful. Wow, I love that. And
we we've already talked about We've talked about your basically
this whole dropout journey. You know you are. You were
(23:00):
in one of the most prestigious professions in my opinion,
and you just weren't happy and you slowly started. And
I think that's where I identify with you in the
same way of my journey where it wasn't like I
woke up one morning and I was like, I'm a musician,
I'm quitting school. Here goes this. It was more of
a transition of like, I want to focus on this,
(23:20):
let's try this. You're double timing at at one point
where you're writing in the morning's early early early, still
going to your job. And so I have one last
question for you, and it's it's your advice for people
like you and I who who you know find themselves
in a place where they know they don't fit, or
something that doesn't necessarily work for them, or a job
(23:41):
that's just leading them down a path of of maybe
not feeling purposeful, not feeling happy. What's your advice for
for those people in terms of having the courage to
to identify with it and make that move. I would
say to invest in the time to feel you're out
what it is you want to do, whether that's speaking
(24:03):
to some kind of career counselor or you know, doing
the work. There's lots of online resources, uh for kind
of taking those tests that let you know what kind
of profession be better and or if you know what
it is, kind of starting that process while you're in
your job, because I think that is helpful and clarifying
and we'll make you realize, like, is this something I
(24:25):
really want to go for And also you'll feel more
confident if you if you do end up going for it,
if you've kind of put down a little bit of
roots before you make that that leap. But I think
it's also in something I had to remind myself important
to think. Like I would also be like, well, it's
too late. You know, I've done this for a long time.
I'm not twenty one, Like it's too late. But then
(24:48):
you think, well, life is actually really long, So do
I want to be doing this for another forty years
or what? Like what if I started this process now?
And like, I'm never going to be um younger than
I am now. So I think it's helpful to think
about the length of of time that you could be
doing something else. I love that. And and Gary V.
(25:08):
I shout out Gary Vynerchuk all the time. Um, he's
one of my favorite people on social media who always
talks about, you know, the concept of people feeling old
and him basically saying, none of you guys, unless you're
the oldest person on earth, You're not old, you know.
And uh and and I think what you just said
is something I loved And I've never even heard that before.
But it's like, you're never gonna be younger than you
are right now. So if you think you're old, now,
(25:29):
wait ten years and you're really gonna be old. Like
this is the youngest. You got to take advantage of
that and go for it. Um. Well, Lee, thank you
so much. We're gonna take a quick break, and when
we come back, I'm actually gonna let you have a
little break if you want. I'll virtually give you one
of these donuts and you can just munch on it. Uh.
And when we come back, I'm gonna be talking with
Karen about the emotional side of of changing your path.
(25:52):
All right, we are back, and apparently so is the
construction going on outside. Um, So if you hear anything,
I will let you know that's the construct. And I
think they're they're breaking down a wall and and uh,
it's it feels very close close to home for me. Um.
And now I'm joined with Karen. Karen, how do you feel?
Do you have any thoughts before we get into our thoughts, um,
(26:14):
just your thoughts on Lee's story. I've never heard anything
like it in terms of somebody who went you know,
I've heard for me it was like high school and
then music, but hers was like lawyer and then artists
like I feel like those were polar opposites. What are
your thoughts? One of the things I heard in Lee's
story is how your deepest truth really wants to break
(26:34):
through the surface, and that there was something about her
path as a writer or her calling as a writer
that just finally broke through, like like a seed sprowsing
through the soil, you know, and that she could not
have kept going the way she was going. She had
to follow that that true path absolutely. Um. Well, before
(26:59):
we get into our conversation, I want to speak to
that because, uh, seventy percent of Americans are going to
go to a four year school. So I'm part of
the seventy of Americans will go to a four year
school and less than two thirds of them will graduate
with a degree. They'll pay for school and not even
get the thing you pay for. Yeah, what do you
(27:21):
make of that? I just I don't know. Especially, we're
gonna need a whole episode in terms of the politics
side of like the economics of schooling. You know, having
a girlfriend who's who's going to u c l A
And studying like a very prestigious major because her goal
is there, or having friends who go to really high
end schools and are willing to pay you know, lawyers
(27:43):
who go to Harvard pay for it and become you
know these lawyers who end up it ends up all
paying off in the end. But it is insane that
this is how much like I'm looking at people's yearly costs.
Oh my goodness, it is insane. And then and then
almost half of them don't even get the thing they
pay for. That's literally like going to a restaurant ordering
(28:05):
a bunch of food, paying for it ahead of time,
and then they go now waiting too long. I'm gonna go.
I'm just gonna leave. That's just insane to me. And
I want to talk about those feelings a little bit later,
but before we get into it, You're actually this is crazy.
You're the black sheep in this group. You did not
drop out, You stayed in school. You are also one
(28:25):
of the like and and no no offense to Lee
at all. You're obviously wildly smart because you went to
law school. But you, in our personal relationship, are one
of the most insightful humans that I know. That's why
I come to you for advice and everything. Karen did
you always know you wanted to follow this path of
being an enlighteners? Like I think more than a therapist,
you are like an enlightener to me, So I'm gonna
(28:46):
call you that. Um did you always know that that's
what you wanted to do or did you have some
of some false starts that maybe you dropped out of
those ideas before for a long time, I didn't know.
I have a lot of areas of interest. I grew
up in a family of teachers, and also education was
(29:07):
always emphasized as being very important. I'm also the granddaughter
of immigrants, so my my mother's father like literally was
off the boat and worked in the laundry and had
very humble beginnings and worked as did the sort of
quote American dream thing and became a lawyer actually. But um, so, education,
(29:33):
the value of education was always like like the ethical
value of education and being the best person you can
be was always something that was highly emphasized with that
also with that immigrant family story built in and and
this may be a topic for another episode, but I
have been thinking about higher education as and white supremacy culture.
(29:55):
So I just want to like throw that in there
a little bit, which is not to say that education
isn't important, but kind of to your point about what
is happening that people are going hundreds of thousands of
dollars into debt into a system that may or may
not actually be serving their their well being or are
collective well being, And is there a way that we
can we need to really reassess how this not the
(30:19):
value of education, but the structural systems of education. I think,
combined you and I have the biggest pot of tea
to pour over all of us in there and their
education system right now. And Lee, if you got some tea,
you're more than welcome to bring it in vodka and
some vodka pie so we can just get drizzy drunk
while a munching on a nice little, nice little cinnamon
(30:40):
apple pie. I didn't answer your question, though, which is that,
UM I knew that it was important for me to
be of service, to be supporting people, and to be
changing the world and to be like a change agent
or an enlighten or whatever you want to call it.
I didn't really know what that was gonna look like.
(31:01):
And when I was in high school and I had
a public education, UM I took this class in high
school called Problems of Young Adulthood, and one of the
semesters in that class, we had to do a project
to investigate what career path we might want to take.
And so at that time there was literally a huge
(31:21):
encyclopedic book called the Occupational Handbook. Maybe it's online now,
I don't know. And I went to the library and
spent hours pouring through that book, and I landed on
social work. Even though I looked at the jobs that
social workers had and I thought, well, this is cool
because I would have so many different things that I
(31:43):
could do. I liked the idea of having a variety
of options, and more importantly, I felt like the values
of that work really resonated with my own values that
had to do with empowerment and social justice and respecting
the dignity of all people and and I'm trying not
to use the word help really, but it's more like
(32:03):
to be of support. And so those things really attracted
me and felt like they were values that I cared about.
And from a very practical point of view, knowing that
I could do a bunch of different things, it was
never my plan to be a therapist. Never. Um, it
is no surprise to me that even though therapist was
not your main goal, you had you know, you were
(32:24):
on that path of wanting to be of service or
wanting to be of support to to your fellow human beings. Um,
but I want to talk now about this whole concept
of what might have been. You went to school, you
kind of followed your path. I didn't go to school,
but I also followed my path, and I have a
lot of feelings, like I had mentioned where it's like, man,
it would have been nice to to be on the
basketball team and you know, to be to try and
(32:47):
be the homecoming king or what you know whatever, all
of that that high school stuff is. I didn't get
any of that. I went to one dance with my
with my my little teenage girlfriend. I went to like
a Sadie Hawkins dance. Um. But other than that, like
I didn't get to do any of the high school stuff.
Like I kind of became an adult at fifteen, and
I have a lot of feelings and and and almost
(33:10):
like I don't know, like trying to fill voids, you know,
like I think that a lot of my youth was
was lost in chasing a dream, which I don't regret
that at all, but I do often have those feelings
of like being sad or or or being like, man,
I missed out on that. That sucks. How do you
how do you overcome that? You're talking about one aspect
(33:32):
of education and like full disclosure, like I didn't do
any of those things in high school either. I didn't
go to the prom, I never went to dances. I
didn't feel like I fit in like you would if
you look on paper, you would it would appear as
if I have really like taken the traditional path. But
if you actually could peel back the layers, you would
(33:52):
be like, oh, this is nothing like what I thought
it was going to be. So I didn't interesting it's
different too, Like I chose not to do those things
weren't important to me because I was I was the
art theater kid, you know, like I was not the
homecoming Like I wasn't into sport, you know, like I
wasn't I really rejected a lot of that. But there
(34:15):
is a part of at least going to college that
is the social developmental part, like how you figure out
like who am I and how do I create a life?
That is about being my authentic self. But there are
also pieces of education that are really about what's going
to help me to make a living and support a
family or you know, have a right livelihood. So both
(34:39):
of those things are important. Like, there are people who
are really like living the dream, who are really suffering economically.
There are people who are thriving economically, but they feel
like their lives are empty. So so then vibe with
me for a little bit because we all, well, we
now have another piece in which we can relate to.
So so do you ever have those thoughts? And and
(34:59):
and I know you had mentioned there's basically there's there's
two different pieces of schooling. You know, there's the experiential
part and then there's the learning part. Experiential is what
I'm kind of focused on, uh for now, because it's
where it's the only place. Like do I regret sitting
in a professor's lab and being like, hey, I really
have a question. I don't regret that stuff at all.
I more regret like you had mentioned the things that
(35:21):
helped shape a human being. You know, I think proms
can they can be very shaping for people. Not necessary
at all. Obviously none of them are necessary because I
am here, But like, there are moments in which some
people you know, I was. We were talking to Neza
in the first episode of this podcast where she talks
about high schools where she you know, lost her virginity,
where she like where she like tried things for the
(35:42):
first time. I know a lot of my friends drink
for the first time and all of those things that
I didn't experience because I was so focused on work.
So telling me that you also didn't do those things,
do you have any regrets that, like, do you ever think, like, man,
I do wish that I had been a little bit
more about the experiential part of school and not just
the academic I don't regret it for like in that age,
(36:03):
like in the high school age, I had that in
other parts of my life I had definitely in college,
I had that. I felt like I had a sense
of community, and I was able to go to a
college that I felt like, again like reflected those same
values to me. And I went to a college, for example,
(36:26):
that had like a cooperative education program, So half of
the time I was on the campus studying and the
other half of the time I was in paid internships,
so I was actually like doing real work because yeah,
because experiential education was a real value, so that when
I graduated from college, I actually already had a resume
UM and I also had one of the things that
(36:48):
I think you have that people sometimes get in college
but not always, is having a mentor. So I had
a mentor who was my advisor in college, and she
was my She she died at the age of like nine,
a couple of years ago, but I had a lifelong
relationship with her. She she wrote my reference letter for
(37:09):
graduate school. Like she was an important mentor in my
life for my entire adult life. And so sometimes people
get those in college, but sometimes you get a mentor
like you have in other parts of your life and
your work. So maybe you could just say a little
bit about like your professional mentors, Like, yeah, absolutely for you.
(37:29):
That's why I think it's That's why I think the
importance of of separating um, which is something that you
did and brought up the academia part of schooling and
the experiential part of schooling, because I think it's pretty
plain and simple if you're basing it off of, Hey,
I want to do this job, there is a clear
path in which I think you do that job. If
you want to be a therapist, you go to school
and you learn and get the degree and do all
(37:51):
that stuff with therapy. If you want to be a lawyer,
you do this. That part, to me is very very clear,
and that's why I'm so happy that I had Like
you said, I had a mentor. I went the route
I think the best route that I could, which was
focusing on practicing music my parents. You know, even my
mentor still told me I needed to read. All of
the mentor. I think I have multiple mentors still told
me I should read and learn, And that's why I'm
(38:13):
so proud. Like you mentioned, you did your path exactly
the way you wanted to. I did my path exactly
the way I wanted to. I think my point is
more now about people who kind of have conflicting feelings
or even in hindsight may have might have conflicting feelings.
I have no conflicting feelings about about going to school
or you know, like having a degree. I have no
(38:35):
conflicting feelings about that. It's more the conflicting feelings about
man like I didn't go to prom but I wanted
to talk about is like the conflicting feelings that you
might feel of anything, like whether it was going to prom,
which you didn't feel that because you got that social
aspect out of your school. I was I'm not even
talking about the things I missed out in college because
my brain never even thought about college. I'm thinking, I'm
(38:58):
just talking about the things that I was missing out
in high school. And I know that a lot of people,
you know, if you're part of that of a sevent
of Americans who get their degree, and now we're having
those feelings. So my question now is is is it
helpful at all to even dwell on the past like
that or is it just like a fool's Errand I
(39:19):
think regret is a complicated emotion, and um, we could
spend a whole episode, Actually we could spend a whole
year just on Regret the podcast. We should make a
new podcast. So one question I often ask people when
they're wrestling with these questions like about education or career
or whatever, is who are you doing this for? Mm hm,
(39:44):
you know, like I'm going to go to law school
or I'm gonna do this, or I'm going to do that.
And it doesn't mean that we should only do for ourselves,
because I think for a lot of us, we come
from a culture or belief system that says I'm part
of I am part of something bigger than and myself.
But if we only do it for other people and
don't include ourselves in it, I think we're more likely
(40:06):
to feel regret because then you realize, oh my god,
I just spent ten years in a career that I
actually hate because my parents wanted me to do it,
or because I felt like I had to be successful
because there were people in my family who didn't have
the opportunities that I had. So it's not that there's
a right way or a wrong way there, but to
(40:26):
really be able to ask yourself for whom am I
making these choices, and am I making sure to include
myself in those choices? I love that, And and actually
we had we had addressed it a little bit, and
it's something that I want to reinforce here, which is
everything that you've done in your life, everything that I've
done in my life has led me exactly where I
am now. So to regret, you know, I always I
(40:49):
wrestle with regret because I try and practice what I preach.
You know, I try and practice like everything that I
did got me here, So not having a problem got
me exactly where I wanted, what I trade where exactly
I am now for what for going to a prom? No,
not at all, And that's something that really helps me.
But you also brought that up, and you also brought
even a better point up, which is who are you
(41:10):
doing it for. Let's say that you get past your
you know, let's say you want to leave school, you're
in college, you're three years into your major, and you're like,
I don't want to do this at all. I'm doing
this for my parents, or I'm doing this because I
think it's the right thing to do, but I actually
love music, or I actually love painting. What is your
advice for somebody who has that moment but they do
(41:31):
have expectations from other people, their parents, maybe their parents
are even helping them pay for school, their friends who
are doing well and having success because they stayed in school,
all of those pressures that come with it. What's your
advice for that? I think having somebody who who can
help you to clarify what's true for you, whether that's
you know, as Lee said, whether it's a career counselor
(41:54):
or a therapist, or an advisor or a mentor or
a group of friends. But you know, sometimes we think
we know what we want, it turns out to actually
be not true. Um. The other thing is we're not
trapped hopefully, So like if at a certain point down
the road, even with tremendous success, like twenty years from now,
(42:15):
you might say, you know what I actually want to be.
I think I might want to take a break from
music and like be a personal trainer, or I might
want to be a restaurant critic, or I might want
to like like John Stewart, like left his career to
go have a farm in New Jersey. You know. Like,
so we have and the best of circumstances, with the
(42:36):
economic support that we need, we have choices. Like Lee's
example was great, like she realized, oh my god, I
have something else not only that I can do, but
that I feel called to. And so regret I think
comes more when we feel like we're stuck and we
can't get ourselves out. But sometimes we're not stuck and
we can actually like say, you know what, I don't
(42:58):
want to work in a hospital as a medical social
worker anymore. I want to go off on my own
and see how this goes. And I did, and here
I am. I love that. So we'll be right back.
And when we come back, we are talking with Lee
and Karen about how to know if a traditional path
is right for you. Don't go anywhere. We are back.
(43:19):
This is let's get into it. And we've had some
pretty I didn't even know how heart felt, you know.
I was kind of thinking we'd talked like and it
would be like, you know, da dada school, da dada work,
you know, fun, and then Karen and I just got
like hella deep with it, and uh, and now we're
here and we're talking about how to know if a
traditional path is right for you. The three of us
have all done uh pretty different paths, have different focuses
(43:42):
and different paths in life, and so I want to have, uh,
just kind of a quick round table and I'll ask
one question, what do you wish you would have known
before going on to continuing your studies. I guess I
really wish I'd known more about what being a lawyer
was like then, Like Ali mcbeel, I think that my
(44:05):
diligence was was pretty lacking, and if I if I
had done a little bit more um looking into into
what into what the career was actually like as opposed
to just jumping into three three years of school. You know,
I might have I might have thought differently, and and
maybe I would have done it, but I would have
(44:27):
been a more educated consumer. M I like that, Karen, Um.
I wish that I had known that mistakes are helpful
because they help you clarify, uh and get back on
the right path. Oh. I love that too. I think
mine as a as the opposite, because it wasn't for continuing,
(44:50):
but because I discontinued. Is the importance of whatever you're doing,
whatever you want to do, if it is dropping out
of high school, if it is dropping out of college
or not going to college, the importance of whatever you
want to do really treating it like it's school, really
learning about it like it's school. I know, when I
first stopped going to online school, I definitely didn't supplement
(45:10):
learning and that same capacity. So I did find myself
being like, what am I doing right now? As a
sixteen year old kid? What am I doing? You know?
And I was like, Oh, it's because I need to
learn more. And that's when I started getting with the mentorship,
like we had mentioned, Karen, with the friends who are
like read this book about business because you're gonna be
a businessman. If you're gonna own your own business, read
(45:31):
this book about music, read this book about all these
other things. So I think my advice that I would
have told myself is don't stop learning in that capacity
because just because you don't go to traditional school or
you don't do the traditional route, keep pushing, keep you know,
learning in that capacity. Treat it like it is school
and not just Hey, I don't have to go to
school anymore, so I can do whatever I want. Um, alright,
(45:53):
this next question is what does the voice sound like
that tells you, uh, something might not be right and
it is time you to change paths or to change directions.
I know for me it was it was even the
voice of my father who gave me that. You know,
I'm very lucky that my dad had experienced what it's
like to not follow the traditional route, and he said, look,
if this isn't you, it's not you. And I'm very
(46:16):
lucky that my parents are like that. So my voice
is actually not an intangible thing. It's my own dad.
What about you, Karen, It's a felt sense in the body.
It's like your own personal GPS that says, you know,
go this way, go that way, um, and that we
there's a lot of clutter and noise that just that
(46:36):
can distract us from that that internal barometer that actually
like knows where we need to go. It's other people's expectations,
it's societal expectations, it's trauma, it's you know, the things
we learned that maybe didn't actually service. It's all these things.
And so it's really like that voice is sometimes like
a little fluttering in the stomach. I think that's the
(46:59):
thing is is it's a good note that you're pointing out,
is that it doesn't have to be this loud siren
in your ear that's like wrong way, wrong way. It
could be something as simple as a feeling. And you
have to have that that vulnerability honestly with yourself to
hear that Lee. Anything to add I would say to
pay paying attention to the times when something happens or
(47:21):
you achieve something and you feel like a genuine kind
of spark of joy as opposed to the kind of
times when it's it's external. Because for me, I felt
like I was I always really like school, and I
like studying. I like taking tests even and getting good grades.
But those things were all all kind of external, like
(47:44):
you're doing well, and I like that, like achieved. I
became sort of an achievement addict. But then there were
times when the things that I that really brought me
joy weren't necessarily those things. They were the times that I,
you know, felt like I'd expressed myself and kind paying
attention to that and not the external markers. It's hard
(48:04):
listening to the external you and the internal you because
sometimes they're telling you two different things, right, So it
leads me to my next question, Karen, is there any
point where you think, um, you should maybe you should
stick to something that's traditional, even if it doesn't necessarily
feel like it's the right thing, because I know a
lot of you know, it's like sometimes I hated I
hated English class, and I was like, I'm dropping out
because English sucks. Obviously you should stay in school just
(48:27):
because you you know, just because you're uncomfortable at one point,
or you don't like something at one point. In my career,
even in music, there's things that I don't like, but
I stick to it because I know that it's my passion.
So I guess putting that in the traditional space, is
there any moments that you feel like you should stick
to it, even if it's not something that you love absolutely.
(48:47):
What's helped me is if I am learning something or
doing something that feels really hard or not like me,
but I can reframe it so that I can see
that there's some value for myself. Like I took trigonometry
and I have not used one drop of it. I
(49:11):
don't remember, I don't give a ship and I didn't
then and I don't now, and I'm not even sure
how I passed the class. But if somebody had actually
been able to say to me, this is how it
actually might serve you later, like in a way that
was actually true, I might have been willing to My
(49:32):
brain does not work that way. I was never going
to be good at that. But I have found it
helpful when I'm learning something that's really hard or doing
something that doesn't feel quite like me, to be able
to ask myself, is there anything here for me that
is worth the suffering that I'm enduring? And sometimes it's
(49:52):
just I can pay my bills right, Like, so there
is the economic reality, but there might also be like
Lee was talking earlier about, like is going through law school,
like applicable or helpful to other careers. Probably sometimes yes
and sometimes no. But if there isn't anything, if it's
not going to give you anything of value, let it go.
(50:15):
I love that. I love that. Now. That's the thing
I love about this podcast is even though we all
have different paths, the three of us are all walking
testimonies or whether it's your actual job, Karen, to advise
people to chase happiness and not chase a diploma or
or a job unless it is truly what is internally
inspiring you. Um do either of you have and we'll
(50:36):
start with you Lee, any other wisdom that you have
just on this topic. I mean, I think we've had
such great conversations today about going the traditional route, sticking
a traditional route, or if not, you know, making that
plan to change your life, following the steps to figuring
out what it is that you really want to chase
and if it if it involves going to school, great
or if it just involves educating in other ways also great.
(50:58):
So is there any final wisdom that you guys have
to share before we wrap this up? I would just
say that that I think knowing that even you know,
even when you're doing what you're meant to do or
that you love to do, it will still sometimes feel
really difficult and that and that and being sort of
(51:19):
okay with that, and it's sort of like what you're
saying before, not just like I hate, like I don't
want to do this, you know, forget it, and kind
of rolling with that a little is something that advice
I give myself often because when you give something up,
it's natural to think, well, you know, I gave up
something to do this, and now it's difficult for me
(51:40):
right now, and so was that was that worth it?
And just kind of rolling with with that a little bit? Yeah,
chasing your dreams is gonna be hard. And that's the thing,
the biggest thing. All three of us are now very
happy doing what we love doing, but all three of us,
none of us have a perfect, easy, smooth sailing time.
It's very you know, it's very much so still a grind,
still a struggle, but at the end of day, it's
(52:00):
a payoff because we are in fact chasing our dreams. Karen,
any last wisdom to add, Yeah, I want to say,
chase integrity. Oh, because sometimes chasing happiness can like we
are socialized to think certain things are going to make
us happy again, sort of the inside versus outside thing.
But if you're chasing your integrity and you are living
(52:23):
your life in alignment with your integrity, the happiness will
come right. Your dreams will be part of that, and
your sense of wholeness as a human being will be intact. Wow,
that's beautiful. Let's leave it at that. Chase integrity, chase
your dreams and if it means the traditional route, go
for it and work hard. And if it doesn't, then
(52:43):
chase whatever it is and learn and stay stay educating
yourself and chasing that integrity. That's a great way to
end it. At this point, I'm gonna take my headphones
off and it's done. Um. But thank you Karen, and
thank you Lee. I want to this is the last
moment of the episode. Uh, and we do something all
the time. It's not so shameless promo. So Lee, I
want you to just promote the hell out of something
(53:04):
that you're working on right now. Promote your social media accounts,
whatever you want to promote. It's your time. Well, I
I am currently basically working on a book that is
not coming out yet, so when the time comes, I
will do I will definitely. We're gonna bring you back
on here to do your shameless bring me back on
you bring me back on? I love it? And where
(53:24):
can people find you on social media? Um lee abs
at Instagram, um and Twitter amazing. Make sure you check
that out. Karen, you're a pro at this not so
shameless promo. Let's hear it. Uh. People can find me
on Twitter and Instagram at k e replenish or you
can go to my website Karen Erlkman dot com. I
(53:45):
love it and you know where you can find me
at alex Iona on all platforms ai o n oh,
the best part about having a weird last name. I
am so grateful that you came in here uh and
listen to this podcast. Please make sure you subscribed to
the podcast and rate our podcast. That is how we grow.
Make sure you leave us a little bit of a
review if you'd like. Thank you so much for listening.
We will talk to you very very soon and enjoy
(54:08):
the rest of your day peace. We really want you
to get the help you need, so if you need help,
please seek independent advice from a competent healthcare or mental
health professional. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast
are solely those of the podcast author or individuals participating
in the podcast, and do not represent the opinions of
(54:30):
I heart Media or its employees. This podcast should not
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Listening to the podcast does not established dr patient relationship
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It or I heart Media. No guarantee is given regarding
the accuracy of any statements or opinions made on this podcast. Well,
if that's a doozy
My name is Alex, and I have not been in
a classroom since ninth grade. No, no, alright, No, it
will be alright forever. No, we are alright, No, will
be alright forever. I have two parents who are very
(00:26):
very for chasing your dreams. You know. My mom did
a couple of years of college, ultimately met my dad,
and my dad kind of started working while my mom
raised us as as children. My dad, on the other hand,
actually dropped out of high school and helped support his
own family, like his parents and his brothers and sisters
by working for his father's company and uh and eventually
(00:49):
got a g e. D. And became a very successful
real estate agent. If you've listened to my other episodes
of the podcast, you'll hear more about that story. But
I want to focus on the education part because what
happened with me is I always liked learning. I think
learning is something that I've always loved, and it's something
that I'm very very passionate about. But I loved learning
about the things I liked more than the things I
(01:09):
didn't like. And my parents very much so picked up
on that towards seventh and eighth grade when they realized
I was really focusing all of my time on learning
about music theory and how to play certain chords and
and structure and songwriting. And I would focus so much
time the way that a doctor would focus on medical information,
(01:30):
or like a lawyer would focus on studying for the bar.
I was studying for the musical bar. I guess and uh.
And halfway through ninth grade, my parents, you know, we
had decided to move to Los Angeles and chase my
dream of being a musician, and I transitioned from regular
classroom traditional school I don't know if that's what it's called,
(01:52):
into online school, which was not by any means successful
for me. I I'm gonna call my mom out in
a good way. She was so good about logging in
for me so that my hours were all right. I know, Hey,
I'm really sorry pre Mavera online high school. This is
the truth. My parents were so good about helping me
(02:12):
be successful, but ultimately I failed a lot of those classes,
not because I wasn't testing properly, but because I just
wasn't showing up or doing any of the assignments. So
by the time that I actually had stopped going to school,
it was a very smooth transition into working full time
in the music industry, and my dad kind of embedded
in my brain this idea of you can make it happen,
(02:35):
you know, mentality, you have to just put in the work,
and and seeing him as a firsthand example of that
was always very easy for me to look at and
be like, oh, yeah, my dad's totally right because he
did it, you know. That was kind of my mindset
with everything. And so here I am ninth grade kind
of looking for a new way to have a career
without having a high school diploma, and then came my
(02:58):
way something that's very very special in California called the Chessie.
It is basically like the g E D on steroids,
but instead of passing and getting like whatever the g
e D Certificate is, you actually get like a diploma
equivalent certificate. So if I wanted to, I could go
to a university afterwards. And my parents always wanting me
to have you know, that education under my belt. They
(03:19):
were super supportive of that, and my fifteen to sixteen
year old girlfriend, Katie Vincent's mom actually paid for like
the books for me to study and like all of
that stuff. So shout out Genea Vincent, big love. You
help me get my diploma, shouts Mom and Dad. I
feel like I'm winning a Grammy, but I only got
like almost diploma, so uh, you know, and then I
(03:41):
at least for me, if you're a fan of me,
you kind of know where that story goes. I started
posting on social media and doing what I love and
chasing it relentlessly and not stopping that work, and I
found myself to a place where I'm a professional in
my field of work if I even want to call
it that. I just like making music for fun and
it pays my bills. Like that's where I am. And
so I am now almost ten years deep in my profession,
(04:04):
with all of the experience that I got to have
and being treated as an adult since I was fifteen,
and and now feeling like I've I'm very deeply rooted
into something that I truly love to do, and I
got to focus all that time. But I would be
remiss if I didn't say that sometimes I wish I was,
you know, getting drunk at prom off of like some
weird mixture of everybody's parents alcohol. Or if I said
(04:28):
I didn't get to go to college parties or or
spring breaks, or playing high school basketball, all of those things.
I do think about those things, and it kind of
all of the positives that came out of me dropping
out and chasing my dreams. It comes with a lot
of pros and it comes with a lot of cons.
I also look back at, you know, a lot of
people who ask me that question because I'm open about
my history with schooling, and they say, well, should I
(04:50):
go to school? Should I not go to school? And
I've always said, you know, other people as advice, don't
take me as the example. And if you don't necessarily
have a plan, and if you don't necessarily know, I've
always said you should go to school, you should go
to college. But there's also now so many factors that
I never put into my brain, you know, in terms
of student loans and and the cost of being of
(05:13):
going to school, and the percentage of people who actually
do the job that they went to school for, and
and a lot of people, especially my friends, you know,
they got their communications degree and it didn't do anything
for them for their job that they're at now. It's
really put it into perspective. So that got me thinking,
is dropping out the right idea? Is not going to college.
The right idea is staying in school because your parents
(05:37):
want you to a good idea And if it is
or it isn't, why is that? No? What's up everybody?
It's alex Iona here. This is let's get into it
my podcast where we talk about a ton of different topics.
Really nothing is off the table at this point, and
we want to talk about something. It's not the sexiest
I'm not gonna lie, not the sexiest topic, but it's
(05:57):
very very important, especially today we're talking about edgecation and
how important it is to go to college and chase
your dreams and if those things don't go together, how
important it is to make the right decision on which
one you want to do. So. I have two very
very diverse guests here that have different paths that we
can talk about and have open conversations with. The first
(06:19):
being a freelance writer whose work has appeared in numerous
publications including The New York Times, The Atlantic, Real Simple More.
But She attended Penn Law before working several years in
big law and clerking in the Southern District of New York.
She's currently toiling away on a brand new novel, You
Guessed It it's about a law firm. Her name is
(06:40):
Lee McMullen Abramson. Lee, it's very nice to meet you.
I just want to know how are you. I'm good,
Thank you so much. It's great to be here. You
guys can't see this, but Lee's got on as she
She's told me it's her daughters. I really think it's hers,
and she's just like a closeted Frozen fanatic. They're Frozen
themed headphones. They're the cool things I've ever seen. I'm
(07:03):
very happy, and you can be honest here on this podcast.
We're open. We're open and honest. The first episode I
talked about losing my virginity, so it's like nothing's off
the table. If those are yours, just just be proud
about it, you know. I will say that I'm very
happy to be wearing them. Okay, I was glad they
were available to me and they feel good. I like that.
You've got a little bit, you know, a little bit
(07:24):
of ownership of those also with me. You guys know,
she's one of my closest friends and I asked her
pretty much for help on anything. Uh, Karen or like man.
She is my wisdom tree. She is my off the
clock therapist as I'm going to call you. It's my
new title for you, because I have so many questions
for you. Karen Orleckman, how are you? I am COVID
good today? Is COVID good? Baby? That's all we can
(07:46):
ask for these days. Well, we're talking about education and
both of you guys have very very different paths in
which you guys chased your ultimate dream or you guys
followed you know, the career path that led you to
where you are, and we're gonna dive super super deep
into that. First, Lee, you and I are going to
talk about Dropouts Handbook because you are very very experienced,
(08:07):
as we're gonna learn in helping people find out how
to follow their truest self, even if it kind of
diverges off of the path that they originally were taking.
And then Karen, you and I are going to talk
about what might have been the concept of well, if
I had done this, Even for me, I have these
thoughts all the time, talking about if I had stayed
in school, if I had gone to college for something.
And then lastly, we are all going to kick it
(08:28):
and talk about how you can tell if the traditional
path or a new concept of a path is right
for you. We're gonna be cracking into all of that.
But before we get into that, I have a question
that I ask all of my guests and uh and
it is. It is a very very important question. What
have you been doing this week to improve yourself? This week,
I have been and this is gonna sound crazy, because
(08:49):
all of my recent improvements have been about health. This week,
I'm sitting next to a dozen of donuts, and I'm
learning how to to fully give myself the freedom and
not feel bad about doing things that make me happy.
Right now, it's a it's a Devil's Food cake, chocolate
frosted peanut doughnut. Right now, look at this thing. You
guys can see it. It's incredible. I'm gonna have a
(09:11):
bite of it, while Karen says hers, But mine, I
think is important because I've been very, very tough on myself,
but I feel very like bad, like I'm hard on
myself about it. So this week I've been focusing on
the mental aspect of saying, hey, this is okay, you
deserve a donut. If you want a donut, you deserve
a doughnut, and I'm gonna eat it. While Karen tells
me what hers is my self improvement this week is
(09:32):
that I'm actually doing absolutely nothing towards self improvement, and
so I'm giving myself a break and just kind of
to your point about the donuts, I'm just being where
I am right now, mm hmmm mm hmmm, because it's
it's a lot of pressure to feel like we need
to constantly be improving ourselves because there's underneath that is
(09:57):
a little bit of like, I'm not okay as I am, um,
and so this week I'm doing absolutely nothing. Karen, You're
on this podcast probably more than anybody else other than myself,
and so you always have something great. So I'm very
very happy that you are having a human moment and saying, hey,
sometimes you don't do anything to improve your life and
that's okay, and I like that. Now, Lee, the pressure
(10:19):
is kind of on because you're not on this podcast ever,
so you gotta come with something hot. I'm just kidding,
it's not it's okay if you don't. All right, well,
I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go with the baked goods
theme here because I have actually, um taught myself how
to make pies during quarantine I have been making pies.
(10:41):
I say it's like an activity to do with the children,
but more often than not, like it becomes just me
doing it by myself. And I have learned that the
secret to a good pie crust is vodka. Woh is it?
Just is it? Because if you have enough vodka, then
you forget how something tastes and you're just like, okay,
if you're drunk, it doesn't matter how you know, it's
(11:06):
something about how it the moisture of the flour and
the butter and makes the vodka in there and good
things happen. So it's it's only like four tables love that.
But but but yeah, so okay, I think I think
we're going to do it. We've done berries and peaches,
and I feel that I'm like making the most of
(11:27):
the seasonal fruit right now. That's good, that's very very
you know what, send one, you can send one my
way if you'd like. I'll I can be the tester
for that and we can have so well. I love
that I'm eating donuts. Karen's just kicking back, You're making pies.
We're having a good time. This is that's what this
episode is all about. It is about following whatever feels right,
(11:47):
speak of that. Let's get let's get into it. I
know it's weird that the show is called that, and
we called the show that because I say it all
the time. But let's get into it. Um, Karen, we're
gonna see you in a bit, Lee, it's time for
a little one on one. So you and I have
something in common. We both dropped out. You went to
a bit more school than I did. You did a
little bit more, but you dropped out of your chosen
(12:10):
career at the time to chase another goal. So tell
me a little bit about your dropout story. So I
went to law school, like a lot of people, because
I didn't know what I wanted to do. And after
I went right after college. And I think of law
school for a lot of people as a socially acceptable
(12:30):
procrastination technique where you have you get this degree and
everyone's excited that you're a lawyer, but um, you actually
haven't figured out what you want to do yet. So
I really liked law school. I found it interesting studying
famous cases and it's a lot of human interest stories.
(12:53):
So but once I got to a law firm, it
was a real rude awakening it was a lot of
reviewing documents in a conference room. I wore these like
rubber covers over my fingers so I wouldn't get paper cuts.
I think I was in the last like fully paper
document review. I think it's all digital now. But but
(13:14):
it was not glamorous and it was long hours and
I didn't feel very passionate about the work that I
was doing, so I left the law firm. I worked
for a judge, which was wonderful. I love that it
was such interesting stories and being in court, and I
thought that was that was wonderful. But that's that was
(13:35):
only a year. Uh, And when I went back to
the law firm, I started thinking really about what I
wanted to do next. I come from a creative family.
My father is an artist and my mother's a writer,
so for me going to law school is a bit
of a rebellion against them. When I was growing up,
I thought like, why can't my parents, you know, go
(13:56):
to offices and wear suits and like my friend parents
and my father was teaching drawing classes and there would
be like nude models there, and I thought this was
literally the most embarrassing thing that could happen to a person,
and I was like, when I grew up, I am
going to go to an office and wear a suit
(14:17):
and this is great. But I really had no idea
what that meant. I feel like, I feel like your
story is so the opposite of everybody. Like usually their
parents are like, you need to go to school and
be this, and they're like, no, mom, I want to
be an artist. Your parents were literally the opposite you.
You said you might be the first person in history
who's ever rebelled against their parents and went to more school.
(14:38):
I don't know if that's a thing. It's now a
thing thanks to you. Sorry, I'll let you continue. Yeah.
So I thought law school was the answer. I wasn't
going to be like my parents. But as I as
I was exploring more, I realized that what I loved
was writing. And there were certain aspects of law where
I get to write, but it wasn't as creative of
(15:00):
And actually the judge that I clerked for told me
when I was clerking, she was like, you're very wonderful
with the facts, Like I love when you write the
opinion section and the and the and the facts section.
You're good at telling the story. And that little comment
was sort of enough to make me feel like maybe
I could try doing this. So I started. Um, I
(15:21):
started working in the morning early and writing and submitting things,
and little by little I felt like there was something
there that wasn't just my imagination. And I also felt
that looking down the road of being a lawyer, it
wasn't it wasn't what I wanted ultimately, and I convinced
(15:42):
myself that it was better to be on the bottom
wrong of the ladder that you want to be on,
then moving up to the top of the ladder you
don't want to be on. So um, yeah, So finally,
you know, I've been practicing law for seven years. I
decided to stop and and give it a go, and
that that's that's what happened. But I still feel like
(16:04):
it's it's a transition that I'm almost still in even
a number of years later. Right, Okay, so let's let's
I want to dissect that a little bit. So, I like,
how much weight you don't give law school, But it's
a pretty heavy thing, like as as everybody knows, like
law school, it's like years and years of study and
hard work and you're balancing social life, you're balancing your family,
(16:27):
you're still trying to have fun. You're in your early
to mid twenties, You're you are spending all this money
for schooling, You're probably going through internships and not getting
paid for things. They're being wildly underpaid. And then most
people do that stuff so that they can eventually have
a very very nice paying job, a very nice salary.
Like you mentioned, they climb that ladder, they get to
(16:48):
the top of that ladder and they can go, Okay,
all of those you know, paper cuts and the little
rubber fingertips and and sitting and being told what to
do and not really having um your opinion being heard.
It's worth it now because of this having transitioned out
of that, do you what are your thoughts on that?
Do you feel like it was a waste? Was it
worth it to you? Do you regret spending all of
(17:09):
that time in that school, paying for that education, studying
time that you maybe could have been having fun, you know,
doing the quote unquote artists things since now you are
an artist. I don't I don't regret it. I mean,
the financial piece is hard to swallow. Yeah, that that
is definitely definitely true. But I do feel like I
(17:33):
was able to take things from that experience, even writing skills,
that that we're helpful, and also that it's now something
that I can write about that not everyone can write about,
and that and that's useful and and so in some ways, yes,
(17:54):
I like you think about the prom like I think, well,
what if I just started out writing, would I be
so much further along? And and and what if that?
And and I think it's you know, you just never
know how things would have worked out. So I try
to be really, you know, at peace with with that
decision of going to law school and taking the really
(18:17):
circuitous route. But but yeah, sometimes I think, well, what
if I had done it differently? And what was the
meaning of it? And and and you have to kind
of continually revisit that. At least I do absolutely, And
I mean I'm very very firm believer in the concept
of everything you've done, every every decision you made, every mistake,
every success lad you exactly to where you are, and
(18:38):
if you wanted something change, then it probably wouldn't lead
you to where you are now. So I don't ask
that question in the terms of thinking you did the
wrong thing at all. You obviously did the right thing,
because there are so many rewards about what you the
decision you made and writing and now UM and I
want to talk about those things you're right or now
and you're writing actually helps other lawyers transition away from
(18:59):
law when a not really speaking to them the same
way that it didn't really speak to you. What made you,
I guess identify like like you said, you know this
gave you this perspective you can write about things that
nobody else has written about. What what made you come
up with that idea to say, hey, maybe I should
write in a way that that could inspire other people
to do the same as me. So I have a
(19:21):
lot of lawyer friends and people I went to law
school with, and I felt that like a lot of
people were unhappy and thinking about ways to transition at
least out of a law firm into something else. And
you know, I talked to a lot of people about it,
and I noticed that there were a lot of people
(19:42):
who we're seeing like career counselors or are sending me
to different websites about UM transitioning for lawyers because it's
it's not the most transferable degree, uh that people think
it necessarily is. Because it teaches you a lot of
critical thinking. But if you want to go into a
(20:03):
different profession, you're still going to have to prove yourself
and and start kind of on the low end of
that profession because you haven't had the experience. I mean,
I interned in a magazine when I was in my
early thirties and extremely pregnant. I mean I was like
walking around with like college students and I was ten
(20:24):
years older than them and stuck out. Literally, how did you?
How did you power through those moments? I mean, I
know that, Like, I feel the same way, and I
know it doesn't have any you know, any comparison, but
I feel the same way when I'm a twenty four
year old man trying to make TikTok's with fourteen year
old kids, Like I feel like that, you know, And
so how did you? What did you tell yourself? Because
I think a lot of people feel like that, maybe, um,
(20:47):
you know, and my album The Gospel of twenty three,
I have a whole song that feels like that. You're
just like I feel old. I feel like an old person.
And and when you're like you said, you're you're like
extremely pregnant. By the way, That's my new favorite quote. Um,
when you're extremely pregnant and you're you're you're you're not
necessarily fitting in with all these other interns, but you're
following your passion. Well, how did you balance the emotions
(21:09):
of that, because I know, at least for me, I've
felt those I felt both like, man, I'm so much
wiser than all these people. That gives me the leg up,
and then also feeling like, man, I'm so much older
than these people. I feel like I don't fit in.
Maybe maybe it's too late for me. Mm hmm. I
think that as a writer and as a creative person,
I always think about something that Nora Ephron said, which
(21:32):
is everything is copy. So when I was like waddling
around to the copy machine, I would think, you know what,
like I could write about this and this is kind
of funny. Um. And I felt like it was an
experience and and I was going to have it because
I wanted to know what it was like to work
in a magazine and if I wanted to work in
(21:53):
a magazine as opposed to be freelance. And so I
was like, this is about what what I'm going to
take from this experience? Um, you know what I want
to take from it, and even if it's you know,
a little untraditional, then that's okay. But I think it's
a creative person always thinking like even your your your
most self conscious moments, even your most um really kind
(22:18):
of doubting moments, those kinds of things can actually make
for the most relatable creative expressions if you write about
those things, if you sing about those things, because everyone
feels that way, and if you are okay experiencing them
and expressing them that that that that will actually be
(22:38):
a worthwhile creative experience. Uh So I try to think
of it, well, what can I kind of turn this into,
even if it's many years down the road or um.
But I think that's helpful. Wow, I love that. And
we we've already talked about We've talked about your basically
this whole dropout journey. You know you are. You were
(23:00):
in one of the most prestigious professions in my opinion,
and you just weren't happy and you slowly started. And
I think that's where I identify with you in the
same way of my journey where it wasn't like I
woke up one morning and I was like, I'm a musician,
I'm quitting school. Here goes this. It was more of
a transition of like, I want to focus on this,
(23:20):
let's try this. You're double timing at at one point
where you're writing in the morning's early early early, still
going to your job. And so I have one last
question for you, and it's it's your advice for people
like you and I who who you know find themselves
in a place where they know they don't fit, or
something that doesn't necessarily work for them, or a job
(23:41):
that's just leading them down a path of of maybe
not feeling purposeful, not feeling happy. What's your advice for
for those people in terms of having the courage to
to identify with it and make that move. I would
say to invest in the time to feel you're out
what it is you want to do, whether that's speaking
(24:03):
to some kind of career counselor or you know, doing
the work. There's lots of online resources, uh for kind
of taking those tests that let you know what kind
of profession be better and or if you know what
it is, kind of starting that process while you're in
your job, because I think that is helpful and clarifying
and we'll make you realize, like, is this something I
(24:25):
really want to go for And also you'll feel more
confident if you if you do end up going for it,
if you've kind of put down a little bit of
roots before you make that that leap. But I think
it's also in something I had to remind myself important
to think. Like I would also be like, well, it's
too late. You know, I've done this for a long time.
I'm not twenty one, Like it's too late. But then
(24:48):
you think, well, life is actually really long, So do
I want to be doing this for another forty years
or what? Like what if I started this process now?
And like, I'm never going to be um younger than
I am now. So I think it's helpful to think
about the length of of time that you could be
doing something else. I love that. And and Gary V.
(25:08):
I shout out Gary Vynerchuk all the time. Um, he's
one of my favorite people on social media who always
talks about, you know, the concept of people feeling old
and him basically saying, none of you guys, unless you're
the oldest person on earth, You're not old, you know.
And uh and and I think what you just said
is something I loved And I've never even heard that before.
But it's like, you're never gonna be younger than you
are right now. So if you think you're old, now,
(25:29):
wait ten years and you're really gonna be old. Like
this is the youngest. You got to take advantage of
that and go for it. Um. Well, Lee, thank you
so much. We're gonna take a quick break, and when
we come back, I'm actually gonna let you have a
little break if you want. I'll virtually give you one
of these donuts and you can just munch on it. Uh.
And when we come back, I'm gonna be talking with
Karen about the emotional side of of changing your path.
(25:52):
All right, we are back, and apparently so is the
construction going on outside. Um, So if you hear anything,
I will let you know that's the construct. And I
think they're they're breaking down a wall and and uh,
it's it feels very close close to home for me. Um.
And now I'm joined with Karen. Karen, how do you feel?
Do you have any thoughts before we get into our thoughts, um,
(26:14):
just your thoughts on Lee's story. I've never heard anything
like it in terms of somebody who went you know,
I've heard for me it was like high school and
then music, but hers was like lawyer and then artists
like I feel like those were polar opposites. What are
your thoughts? One of the things I heard in Lee's
story is how your deepest truth really wants to break
(26:34):
through the surface, and that there was something about her
path as a writer or her calling as a writer
that just finally broke through, like like a seed sprowsing
through the soil, you know, and that she could not
have kept going the way she was going. She had
to follow that that true path absolutely. Um. Well, before
(26:59):
we get into our conversation, I want to speak to
that because, uh, seventy percent of Americans are going to
go to a four year school. So I'm part of
the seventy of Americans will go to a four year
school and less than two thirds of them will graduate
with a degree. They'll pay for school and not even
get the thing you pay for. Yeah, what do you
(27:21):
make of that? I just I don't know. Especially, we're
gonna need a whole episode in terms of the politics
side of like the economics of schooling. You know, having
a girlfriend who's who's going to u c l A
And studying like a very prestigious major because her goal
is there, or having friends who go to really high
end schools and are willing to pay you know, lawyers
(27:43):
who go to Harvard pay for it and become you
know these lawyers who end up it ends up all
paying off in the end. But it is insane that
this is how much like I'm looking at people's yearly costs.
Oh my goodness, it is insane. And then and then
almost half of them don't even get the thing they
pay for. That's literally like going to a restaurant ordering
(28:05):
a bunch of food, paying for it ahead of time,
and then they go now waiting too long. I'm gonna go.
I'm just gonna leave. That's just insane to me. And
I want to talk about those feelings a little bit later,
but before we get into it, You're actually this is crazy.
You're the black sheep in this group. You did not
drop out, You stayed in school. You are also one
(28:25):
of the like and and no no offense to Lee
at all. You're obviously wildly smart because you went to
law school. But you, in our personal relationship, are one
of the most insightful humans that I know. That's why
I come to you for advice and everything. Karen did
you always know you wanted to follow this path of
being an enlighteners? Like I think more than a therapist,
you are like an enlightener to me, So I'm gonna
(28:46):
call you that. Um did you always know that that's
what you wanted to do or did you have some
of some false starts that maybe you dropped out of
those ideas before for a long time, I didn't know.
I have a lot of areas of interest. I grew
up in a family of teachers, and also education was
(29:07):
always emphasized as being very important. I'm also the granddaughter
of immigrants, so my my mother's father like literally was
off the boat and worked in the laundry and had
very humble beginnings and worked as did the sort of
quote American dream thing and became a lawyer actually. But um, so, education,
(29:33):
the value of education was always like like the ethical
value of education and being the best person you can
be was always something that was highly emphasized with that
also with that immigrant family story built in and and
this may be a topic for another episode, but I
have been thinking about higher education as and white supremacy culture.
(29:55):
So I just want to like throw that in there
a little bit, which is not to say that education
isn't important, but kind of to your point about what
is happening that people are going hundreds of thousands of
dollars into debt into a system that may or may
not actually be serving their their well being or are
collective well being, And is there a way that we
can we need to really reassess how this not the
(30:19):
value of education, but the structural systems of education. I think,
combined you and I have the biggest pot of tea
to pour over all of us in there and their
education system right now. And Lee, if you got some tea,
you're more than welcome to bring it in vodka and
some vodka pie so we can just get drizzy drunk
while a munching on a nice little, nice little cinnamon
(30:40):
apple pie. I didn't answer your question, though, which is that,
UM I knew that it was important for me to
be of service, to be supporting people, and to be
changing the world and to be like a change agent
or an enlighten or whatever you want to call it.
I didn't really know what that was gonna look like.
(31:01):
And when I was in high school and I had
a public education, UM I took this class in high
school called Problems of Young Adulthood, and one of the
semesters in that class, we had to do a project
to investigate what career path we might want to take.
And so at that time there was literally a huge
(31:21):
encyclopedic book called the Occupational Handbook. Maybe it's online now,
I don't know. And I went to the library and
spent hours pouring through that book, and I landed on
social work. Even though I looked at the jobs that
social workers had and I thought, well, this is cool
because I would have so many different things that I
(31:43):
could do. I liked the idea of having a variety
of options, and more importantly, I felt like the values
of that work really resonated with my own values that
had to do with empowerment and social justice and respecting
the dignity of all people and and I'm trying not
to use the word help really, but it's more like
(32:03):
to be of support. And so those things really attracted
me and felt like they were values that I cared about.
And from a very practical point of view, knowing that
I could do a bunch of different things, it was
never my plan to be a therapist. Never. Um, it
is no surprise to me that even though therapist was
not your main goal, you had you know, you were
(32:24):
on that path of wanting to be of service or
wanting to be of support to to your fellow human beings. Um,
but I want to talk now about this whole concept
of what might have been. You went to school, you
kind of followed your path. I didn't go to school,
but I also followed my path, and I have a
lot of feelings, like I had mentioned where it's like, man,
it would have been nice to to be on the
basketball team and you know, to be to try and
(32:47):
be the homecoming king or what you know whatever, all
of that that high school stuff is. I didn't get
any of that. I went to one dance with my
with my my little teenage girlfriend. I went to like
a Sadie Hawkins dance. Um. But other than that, like
I didn't get to do any of the high school stuff.
Like I kind of became an adult at fifteen, and
I have a lot of feelings and and and almost
(33:10):
like I don't know, like trying to fill voids, you know,
like I think that a lot of my youth was
was lost in chasing a dream, which I don't regret
that at all, but I do often have those feelings
of like being sad or or or being like, man,
I missed out on that. That sucks. How do you
how do you overcome that? You're talking about one aspect
(33:32):
of education and like full disclosure, like I didn't do
any of those things in high school either. I didn't
go to the prom, I never went to dances. I
didn't feel like I fit in like you would if
you look on paper, you would it would appear as
if I have really like taken the traditional path. But
if you actually could peel back the layers, you would
(33:52):
be like, oh, this is nothing like what I thought
it was going to be. So I didn't interesting it's
different too, Like I chose not to do those things
weren't important to me because I was I was the
art theater kid, you know, like I was not the
homecoming Like I wasn't into sport, you know, like I
wasn't I really rejected a lot of that. But there
(34:15):
is a part of at least going to college that
is the social developmental part, like how you figure out
like who am I and how do I create a life?
That is about being my authentic self. But there are
also pieces of education that are really about what's going
to help me to make a living and support a
family or you know, have a right livelihood. So both
(34:39):
of those things are important. Like, there are people who
are really like living the dream, who are really suffering economically.
There are people who are thriving economically, but they feel
like their lives are empty. So so then vibe with
me for a little bit because we all, well, we
now have another piece in which we can relate to.
So so do you ever have those thoughts? And and
(34:59):
and I know you had mentioned there's basically there's there's
two different pieces of schooling. You know, there's the experiential
part and then there's the learning part. Experiential is what
I'm kind of focused on, uh for now, because it's
where it's the only place. Like do I regret sitting
in a professor's lab and being like, hey, I really
have a question. I don't regret that stuff at all.
I more regret like you had mentioned the things that
(35:21):
helped shape a human being. You know, I think proms
can they can be very shaping for people. Not necessary
at all. Obviously none of them are necessary because I
am here, But like, there are moments in which some
people you know, I was. We were talking to Neza
in the first episode of this podcast where she talks
about high schools where she you know, lost her virginity,
where she like where she like tried things for the
(35:42):
first time. I know a lot of my friends drink
for the first time and all of those things that
I didn't experience because I was so focused on work.
So telling me that you also didn't do those things,
do you have any regrets that, like, do you ever think, like, man,
I do wish that I had been a little bit
more about the experiential part of school and not just
the academic I don't regret it for like in that age,
(36:03):
like in the high school age, I had that in
other parts of my life I had definitely in college,
I had that. I felt like I had a sense
of community, and I was able to go to a
college that I felt like, again like reflected those same
values to me. And I went to a college, for example,
(36:26):
that had like a cooperative education program, So half of
the time I was on the campus studying and the
other half of the time I was in paid internships,
so I was actually like doing real work because yeah,
because experiential education was a real value, so that when
I graduated from college, I actually already had a resume
UM and I also had one of the things that
(36:48):
I think you have that people sometimes get in college
but not always, is having a mentor. So I had
a mentor who was my advisor in college, and she
was my She she died at the age of like nine,
a couple of years ago, but I had a lifelong
relationship with her. She she wrote my reference letter for
(37:09):
graduate school. Like she was an important mentor in my
life for my entire adult life. And so sometimes people
get those in college, but sometimes you get a mentor
like you have in other parts of your life and
your work. So maybe you could just say a little
bit about like your professional mentors, Like, yeah, absolutely for you.
(37:29):
That's why I think it's That's why I think the
importance of of separating um, which is something that you
did and brought up the academia part of schooling and
the experiential part of schooling, because I think it's pretty
plain and simple if you're basing it off of, Hey,
I want to do this job, there is a clear
path in which I think you do that job. If
you want to be a therapist, you go to school
and you learn and get the degree and do all
(37:51):
that stuff with therapy. If you want to be a lawyer,
you do this. That part, to me is very very clear,
and that's why I'm so happy that I had Like
you said, I had a mentor. I went the route
I think the best route that I could, which was
focusing on practicing music my parents. You know, even my
mentor still told me I needed to read. All of
the mentor. I think I have multiple mentors still told
me I should read and learn, And that's why I'm
(38:13):
so proud. Like you mentioned, you did your path exactly
the way you wanted to. I did my path exactly
the way I wanted to. I think my point is
more now about people who kind of have conflicting feelings
or even in hindsight may have might have conflicting feelings.
I have no conflicting feelings about about going to school
or you know, like having a degree. I have no
(38:35):
conflicting feelings about that. It's more the conflicting feelings about
man like I didn't go to prom but I wanted
to talk about is like the conflicting feelings that you
might feel of anything, like whether it was going to prom,
which you didn't feel that because you got that social
aspect out of your school. I was I'm not even
talking about the things I missed out in college because
my brain never even thought about college. I'm thinking, I'm
(38:58):
just talking about the things that I was missing out
in high school. And I know that a lot of people,
you know, if you're part of that of a sevent
of Americans who get their degree, and now we're having
those feelings. So my question now is is is it
helpful at all to even dwell on the past like
that or is it just like a fool's Errand I
(39:19):
think regret is a complicated emotion, and um, we could
spend a whole episode, Actually we could spend a whole
year just on Regret the podcast. We should make a
new podcast. So one question I often ask people when
they're wrestling with these questions like about education or career
or whatever, is who are you doing this for? Mm hm,
(39:44):
you know, like I'm going to go to law school
or I'm gonna do this, or I'm going to do that.
And it doesn't mean that we should only do for ourselves,
because I think for a lot of us, we come
from a culture or belief system that says I'm part
of I am part of something bigger than and myself.
But if we only do it for other people and
don't include ourselves in it, I think we're more likely
(40:06):
to feel regret because then you realize, oh my god,
I just spent ten years in a career that I
actually hate because my parents wanted me to do it,
or because I felt like I had to be successful
because there were people in my family who didn't have
the opportunities that I had. So it's not that there's
a right way or a wrong way there, but to
(40:26):
really be able to ask yourself for whom am I
making these choices, and am I making sure to include
myself in those choices? I love that, And and actually
we had we had addressed it a little bit, and
it's something that I want to reinforce here, which is
everything that you've done in your life, everything that I've
done in my life has led me exactly where I
am now. So to regret, you know, I always I
(40:49):
wrestle with regret because I try and practice what I preach.
You know, I try and practice like everything that I
did got me here, So not having a problem got
me exactly where I wanted, what I trade where exactly
I am now for what for going to a prom? No,
not at all, And that's something that really helps me.
But you also brought that up, and you also brought
even a better point up, which is who are you
(41:10):
doing it for. Let's say that you get past your
you know, let's say you want to leave school, you're
in college, you're three years into your major, and you're like,
I don't want to do this at all. I'm doing
this for my parents, or I'm doing this because I
think it's the right thing to do, but I actually
love music, or I actually love painting. What is your
advice for somebody who has that moment but they do
(41:31):
have expectations from other people, their parents, maybe their parents
are even helping them pay for school, their friends who
are doing well and having success because they stayed in school,
all of those pressures that come with it. What's your
advice for that? I think having somebody who who can
help you to clarify what's true for you, whether that's
you know, as Lee said, whether it's a career counselor
(41:54):
or a therapist, or an advisor or a mentor or
a group of friends. But you know, sometimes we think
we know what we want, it turns out to actually
be not true. Um. The other thing is we're not
trapped hopefully, So like if at a certain point down
the road, even with tremendous success, like twenty years from now,
(42:15):
you might say, you know what I actually want to be.
I think I might want to take a break from
music and like be a personal trainer, or I might
want to be a restaurant critic, or I might want
to like like John Stewart, like left his career to
go have a farm in New Jersey. You know. Like,
so we have and the best of circumstances, with the
(42:36):
economic support that we need, we have choices. Like Lee's
example was great, like she realized, oh my god, I
have something else not only that I can do, but
that I feel called to. And so regret I think
comes more when we feel like we're stuck and we
can't get ourselves out. But sometimes we're not stuck and
we can actually like say, you know what, I don't
(42:58):
want to work in a hospital as a medical social
worker anymore. I want to go off on my own
and see how this goes. And I did, and here
I am. I love that. So we'll be right back.
And when we come back, we are talking with Lee
and Karen about how to know if a traditional path
is right for you. Don't go anywhere. We are back.
(43:19):
This is let's get into it. And we've had some
pretty I didn't even know how heart felt, you know.
I was kind of thinking we'd talked like and it
would be like, you know, da dada school, da dada work,
you know, fun, and then Karen and I just got
like hella deep with it, and uh, and now we're
here and we're talking about how to know if a
traditional path is right for you. The three of us
have all done uh pretty different paths, have different focuses
(43:42):
and different paths in life, and so I want to have, uh,
just kind of a quick round table and I'll ask
one question, what do you wish you would have known
before going on to continuing your studies. I guess I
really wish I'd known more about what being a lawyer
was like then, Like Ali mcbeel, I think that my
(44:05):
diligence was was pretty lacking, and if I if I
had done a little bit more um looking into into
what into what the career was actually like as opposed
to just jumping into three three years of school. You know,
I might have I might have thought differently, and and
maybe I would have done it, but I would have
(44:27):
been a more educated consumer. M I like that, Karen, Um.
I wish that I had known that mistakes are helpful
because they help you clarify, uh and get back on
the right path. Oh. I love that too. I think
mine as a as the opposite, because it wasn't for continuing,
(44:50):
but because I discontinued. Is the importance of whatever you're doing,
whatever you want to do, if it is dropping out
of high school, if it is dropping out of college
or not going to college, the importance of whatever you
want to do really treating it like it's school, really
learning about it like it's school. I know, when I
first stopped going to online school, I definitely didn't supplement
(45:10):
learning and that same capacity. So I did find myself
being like, what am I doing right now? As a
sixteen year old kid? What am I doing? You know?
And I was like, Oh, it's because I need to
learn more. And that's when I started getting with the mentorship,
like we had mentioned, Karen, with the friends who are
like read this book about business because you're gonna be
a businessman. If you're gonna own your own business, read
(45:31):
this book about music, read this book about all these
other things. So I think my advice that I would
have told myself is don't stop learning in that capacity
because just because you don't go to traditional school or
you don't do the traditional route, keep pushing, keep you know,
learning in that capacity. Treat it like it is school
and not just Hey, I don't have to go to
school anymore, so I can do whatever I want. Um, alright,
(45:53):
this next question is what does the voice sound like
that tells you, uh, something might not be right and
it is time you to change paths or to change directions.
I know for me it was it was even the
voice of my father who gave me that. You know,
I'm very lucky that my dad had experienced what it's
like to not follow the traditional route, and he said, look,
if this isn't you, it's not you. And I'm very
(46:16):
lucky that my parents are like that. So my voice
is actually not an intangible thing. It's my own dad.
What about you, Karen, It's a felt sense in the body.
It's like your own personal GPS that says, you know,
go this way, go that way, um, and that we
there's a lot of clutter and noise that just that
(46:36):
can distract us from that that internal barometer that actually
like knows where we need to go. It's other people's expectations,
it's societal expectations, it's trauma, it's you know, the things
we learned that maybe didn't actually service. It's all these things.
And so it's really like that voice is sometimes like
a little fluttering in the stomach. I think that's the
(46:59):
thing is is it's a good note that you're pointing out,
is that it doesn't have to be this loud siren
in your ear that's like wrong way, wrong way. It
could be something as simple as a feeling. And you
have to have that that vulnerability honestly with yourself to
hear that Lee. Anything to add I would say to
pay paying attention to the times when something happens or
(47:21):
you achieve something and you feel like a genuine kind
of spark of joy as opposed to the kind of
times when it's it's external. Because for me, I felt
like I was I always really like school, and I
like studying. I like taking tests even and getting good grades.
But those things were all all kind of external, like
(47:44):
you're doing well, and I like that, like achieved. I
became sort of an achievement addict. But then there were
times when the things that I that really brought me
joy weren't necessarily those things. They were the times that I,
you know, felt like I'd expressed myself and kind paying
attention to that and not the external markers. It's hard
(48:04):
listening to the external you and the internal you because
sometimes they're telling you two different things, right, So it
leads me to my next question, Karen, is there any
point where you think, um, you should maybe you should
stick to something that's traditional, even if it doesn't necessarily
feel like it's the right thing, because I know a
lot of you know, it's like sometimes I hated I
hated English class, and I was like, I'm dropping out
because English sucks. Obviously you should stay in school just
(48:27):
because you you know, just because you're uncomfortable at one point,
or you don't like something at one point. In my career,
even in music, there's things that I don't like, but
I stick to it because I know that it's my passion.
So I guess putting that in the traditional space, is
there any moments that you feel like you should stick
to it, even if it's not something that you love absolutely.
(48:47):
What's helped me is if I am learning something or
doing something that feels really hard or not like me,
but I can reframe it so that I can see
that there's some value for myself. Like I took trigonometry
and I have not used one drop of it. I
(49:11):
don't remember, I don't give a ship and I didn't
then and I don't now, and I'm not even sure
how I passed the class. But if somebody had actually
been able to say to me, this is how it
actually might serve you later, like in a way that
was actually true, I might have been willing to My
(49:32):
brain does not work that way. I was never going
to be good at that. But I have found it
helpful when I'm learning something that's really hard or doing
something that doesn't feel quite like me, to be able
to ask myself, is there anything here for me that
is worth the suffering that I'm enduring? And sometimes it's
(49:52):
just I can pay my bills right, Like, so there
is the economic reality, but there might also be like
Lee was talking earlier about, like is going through law school,
like applicable or helpful to other careers. Probably sometimes yes
and sometimes no. But if there isn't anything, if it's
not going to give you anything of value, let it go.
(50:15):
I love that. I love that. Now. That's the thing
I love about this podcast is even though we all
have different paths, the three of us are all walking
testimonies or whether it's your actual job, Karen, to advise
people to chase happiness and not chase a diploma or
or a job unless it is truly what is internally
inspiring you. Um do either of you have and we'll
(50:36):
start with you Lee, any other wisdom that you have
just on this topic. I mean, I think we've had
such great conversations today about going the traditional route, sticking
a traditional route, or if not, you know, making that
plan to change your life, following the steps to figuring
out what it is that you really want to chase
and if it if it involves going to school, great
or if it just involves educating in other ways also great.
(50:58):
So is there any final wisdom that you guys have
to share before we wrap this up? I would just
say that that I think knowing that even you know,
even when you're doing what you're meant to do or
that you love to do, it will still sometimes feel
really difficult and that and that and being sort of
(51:19):
okay with that, and it's sort of like what you're
saying before, not just like I hate, like I don't
want to do this, you know, forget it, and kind
of rolling with that a little is something that advice
I give myself often because when you give something up,
it's natural to think, well, you know, I gave up
something to do this, and now it's difficult for me
(51:40):
right now, and so was that was that worth it?
And just kind of rolling with with that a little bit? Yeah,
chasing your dreams is gonna be hard. And that's the thing,
the biggest thing. All three of us are now very
happy doing what we love doing, but all three of us,
none of us have a perfect, easy, smooth sailing time.
It's very you know, it's very much so still a grind,
still a struggle, but at the end of day, it's
(52:00):
a payoff because we are in fact chasing our dreams. Karen,
any last wisdom to add, Yeah, I want to say,
chase integrity. Oh, because sometimes chasing happiness can like we
are socialized to think certain things are going to make
us happy again, sort of the inside versus outside thing.
But if you're chasing your integrity and you are living
(52:23):
your life in alignment with your integrity, the happiness will
come right. Your dreams will be part of that, and
your sense of wholeness as a human being will be intact. Wow,
that's beautiful. Let's leave it at that. Chase integrity, chase
your dreams and if it means the traditional route, go
for it and work hard. And if it doesn't, then
(52:43):
chase whatever it is and learn and stay stay educating
yourself and chasing that integrity. That's a great way to
end it. At this point, I'm gonna take my headphones
off and it's done. Um. But thank you Karen, and
thank you Lee. I want to this is the last
moment of the episode. Uh, and we do something all
the time. It's not so shameless promo. So Lee, I
want you to just promote the hell out of something
(53:04):
that you're working on right now. Promote your social media accounts,
whatever you want to promote. It's your time. Well, I
I am currently basically working on a book that is
not coming out yet, so when the time comes, I
will do I will definitely. We're gonna bring you back
on here to do your shameless bring me back on
you bring me back on? I love it? And where
(53:24):
can people find you on social media? Um lee abs
at Instagram, um and Twitter amazing. Make sure you check
that out. Karen, you're a pro at this not so
shameless promo. Let's hear it. Uh. People can find me
on Twitter and Instagram at k e replenish or you
can go to my website Karen Erlkman dot com. I
(53:45):
love it and you know where you can find me
at alex Iona on all platforms ai o n oh,
the best part about having a weird last name. I
am so grateful that you came in here uh and
listen to this podcast. Please make sure you subscribed to
the podcast and rate our podcast. That is how we grow.
Make sure you leave us a little bit of a
review if you'd like. Thank you so much for listening.
We will talk to you very very soon and enjoy
(54:08):
the rest of your day peace. We really want you
to get the help you need, so if you need help,
please seek independent advice from a competent healthcare or mental
health professional. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast
are solely those of the podcast author or individuals participating
in the podcast, and do not represent the opinions of
(54:30):
I heart Media or its employees. This podcast should not
be used as medical advice, mental health advice, counseling, or therapy.
Listening to the podcast does not established dr patient relationship
with hosts or guests of alex IONO, Let's Get Into
It or I heart Media. No guarantee is given regarding
the accuracy of any statements or opinions made on this podcast. Well,
if that's a doozy
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