13 - Successful but Unfulfilled: Getting to the Other Side of a Quarter-Life Crisis with Tess Brigham - Revelizations

Episode Transcript
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(00:09):
This episode of Revelizations is brought to you by Peek-A-Boo Eyewear.
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Hi everyone, welcome to Revelizations.

(02:06):
I'm your host, Brian James.
Today's guest is mental health expert Tess Brigham.
Tess is a psychotherapist, certified coach, TEDx speaker, and the author of True You:
A Step-by-Step Guide to Conquering Your Quarter-Life Crisis.
With over 20 years of experience, she's dedicated to helping young adults discover their true

(02:28):
life paths and create meaningful impact in the world.
She's dubbed the Millennial Therapist by CNBC.
In addition to her private practice, Tess is the host of Psych Legal Pop, a podcast
she co-hosts with her sister Brooke where they dive into pop culture through the lenses
of a therapist, that's Tess, and an attorney, her sister Brooke.

(02:50):
Tess is also soon launching a brand new podcast called Gen Mess with Tess, where she talks
with people of various ages and different professions about this mess of intergenerations
working together in the labor workforce and how to navigate those differences to facilitate
better work environments.
Today, Tess is here with me as we talk about her expertise in life change, stress, generational

(03:15):
gaps, and more.
Join me as I sit down with Tess Brigham.
Thanks for listening.
Hi everyone, welcome to Revelizations.
I'm your host, Brian James, and with me today I have the multi-faceted Tess Brigham
with me here to talk about how to find fulfillment in life.
Thank you so much for being here, Tess.
Oh, you're welcome.
Thank you for having me.
And you pronounced my name correctly, which I am so grateful for.

(03:37):
You would not believe how many people struggle with Brigham.
People don't know what to make of it.
I listened to, I think, three or four different podcasts to try and hear until eventually
I heard you say it.
And I was like, okay, got it.
But it was actually a lot of people put an N in there.
Yes.

(03:57):
Brigham.
Brigham or Brigham.
Yeah.
And what's so hot about it is, you know, Brigham Young is a pretty well-known person.
And then, of course, people are like, oh, are you Mormon?
I'm like, no, that was his first name.
This is our last name.
But on the East Coast, because I went to college in Boston, there's Brigham and Women's Hospital.
There's Brigham's Ice Cream.
Like, out there, people could pronounce the name.

(04:19):
But here in the West, nobody seems to understand it.
But it just seems so like, I didn't know this was so hard for people.
But I'm constantly, people that know me well mispronounce it all the time.
So I appreciate you, you know, taking the time to do it right.
There's a little research in it, but I figure that's the least I can do is at least get

(04:40):
the name right.
I didn't know.
The first person I heard, they put an N in there.
The first two people I listened to, and I was like, I don't know, maybe there's a, the
N has disappeared.
So that way, there is some separation from Brigham Young.
I didn't know.
Like, there's a lot of people whose last name is Epstein, and they probably want to be called
Epstein or something like that.
Yeah, maybe.

(05:01):
They don't want to be correlated or close with Jeffrey Epstein.
So first question, I'm just wondering, how challenging is it as a psychotherapist to
watch Sister Wives and not destroy your TV with, I don't know, a side table or anything
like that?
Well, so you're referring to the podcast that I do with my sister, right?

(05:24):
Yes.
Because we talk a lot about Sister Wives.
Yeah, I mean, you know, it can be frustrating, but I think that's why so many people are
fascinated by this show and why there are so many people covering it and talking about
it, because it is, it is just, it's, you know, it's about a family and it's about these family

(05:45):
dynamics and, you know, how, as people get older and has people grow and how people have
evolved and changed, what happens, like what we're seeing are all of these, these dynamics
of people and some people feeling like, well, wait a second, it was like this 10 years ago,
we did all these traditions.

(06:08):
That's not fair, you know, that we stop these traditions and then we've got these older
kids who want to go off and do their own thing and the family's like, you know, we don't
have to keep these traditions.
It's just, you know, there's so many personalities.
I think that's what makes the show so interesting.
But I'm not, I'm, I think that when it comes to TV shows and, you know, my clients, it's

(06:28):
very easy to take a step back and kind of be analytical.
But it was, if this was, you know, but if it's your own stuff that's going on, like
my own family stuff, it's much harder to, I don't know, recognize or to like, to, to
want to dig in.
But yeah, I find Sister Wives utterly fascinating.
I don't, there's a few times that Cody will, some comments that he makes that are a little

(06:51):
much, but you know, it's, it's his opinion, he has the right to it.
That's the healthier way to look at it because just for context, Sister Wives is a show,
I think it's on TLC.
You can watch it on Hulu or HBO, I think.
And it's about a polygamist family.
They're, they're Mormon, they're LDS, probably FLDS should make that delineation or formally.

(07:16):
I don't know if they still identify as that.
What they call the AUB.
Their church is the AUB.
I don't know what those three letters stand for.
But it is, it's not FLDS, but it is a offshoot where they, this AUB believes in polygamy.
Okay.
So yeah, it's like closely related, but probably because of the FLDS legal issues, they want

(07:39):
that separation from it.
So it's just a reality TV show about a family and the, the husband, someone who has three
different wives, you can imagine the personality.
So he has a very strong personality that's very easy to dislike, especially as he contradicts

(07:59):
things that he says and says he, he never said I'm in the first place.
So my wife and I just, she got me into it.
I don't know, like three, no, like not even just like a month or month ago or something
like that.
And we just, we watched so many seasons so fast and it's obviously not supposed to be

(08:20):
ingested in that way, but that's how we watched it.
So it's just like, I just saw this transition in that family and his behavior become more
and more harsh and I don't know, less, less, more selfish, I guess, as like more apparently
selfish.
Like he kind of eventually stopped with the charade that this is for the family or something.

(08:42):
Again, this is my perception of it.
It doesn't mean it's true, but that's, yeah, my wife and I will just go off on just like
the things that he does, like, you know, just throwing our hands up, throwing popcorn
up.
Oh my God, I can't believe it.
So I was just wondering from your perspective, how do you tolerate that?
No, I don't find it so, I don't find it so difficult.

(09:05):
I think that it is, you know, it is funny because if you talk about right fulfillment
And I think that you can see that the main, you know, Cody and the first three wives,
they all, you know, they all made this decision about being in this plural family very young,

(09:27):
you know, very, very young.
And so that's the part of it is, you know, so what is that like when you make this huge
decision that's going to affect your life forever and ever and ever?
And this, what I find fascinating is like this evolution of these women of kind of coming
into their own and figuring out like, wait a second, this isn't, this isn't going to

(09:52):
work for me.
And I think that what's so hard about it is, is that, you know, anytime that you have something
where you're telling people you absolutely, you know, you have to do this, you have to
do this.
It's kind of a recipe for disaster because not this isn't right for everybody.
And I think that right for the women, they had been told over and over again, right,

(10:16):
you shouldn't be jealous, you shouldn't have these feelings, you shouldn't do any of these
things. And I think they're now finally saying like, no, it's OK for me to feel this way.
And maybe this isn't for me.
Maybe I shouldn't be doing this.
So but the show has gotten much more fascinating in the last couple of years since one of the
wives left, it became a it became a whole spiral.

(10:38):
So that's so that's why it's finally become really interesting, the show, the resurgence,
because now now they're you know, you know what it is.
They're finally telling the truth.
They're finally telling us how they really feel.
And that is what's fascinating about it.
Yeah, I agree, because that's kind of what hooked me into it and what, you know, there's

(11:02):
19 seasons, my wife and I don't know, I've watched up to season 18, but I started at
like season six or something like that.
And I had no interest in it ever.
But it's like, I know that the wives left him.
So I kind of wanted to see, OK, why did this happen?
What's the journey? Like, how does it get there?
And then it doesn't look good on me.

(11:25):
But seeing his personality and being like, oh, he's about to see what what he's been
planting. He's about to reap that harvest.
And so, you know, it's not good to be like, oh, man, he's he's going to get it and I'm
going to watch him see it.
But that was kind of like my motivation to watch it.
Yeah. And then just his personality, it's like, oh, he he doesn't even see what he did

(11:47):
because it's still like now he's saying, like, I don't even want this anymore.
So he kind of just gets what he wants.
So it's a little it's not as satisfying.
But again, you shouldn't be like looking to get any sort of satisfaction.
Yeah. Well, and that's why the show is interesting.
Like a lot of times people because Cody and Robin are sort of the least liked.

(12:08):
People are always like, oh, get rid of them.
And it's like, no, we need them. We need both sides.
We need, you know, we need all of it.
It's it's so.
Yeah. I mean, I think that but I think the Cody got stuck in something that I've seen
a lot of people get stuck into, which is when we create this vision or fantasy
in our head of how we believe our lives should be.

(12:31):
And then we get there and we keep trying to shove this dream.
You know, we either try to keep making this work over and over and over again,
or we exactly what's happening with Cody.
Right. Which is he's sort of like, well, my dream's dead and that's terrible.
And it's a little bit like, but this it was a dream to begin with.
I mean, has this idea of having all of his children,

(12:53):
all 18 kids to live on this piece of property and we're going to build a big house
and we're all going to live together, like the idea of that is it's it's
it's a little bit like, you know, well, but also just our dreams are what they are.
You know, their dreams, they're not reality.
And, you know, because I work with a lot of young people,

(13:15):
that's a lot of what they're dealing with when they first come to me.
Sort of this this reality that I think we all face when we're
usually in our 20s, where we realize like, oh, wow, life is not going to look
like how I thought it was going to look in my high school bedroom.
You know, like when I pictured my life and how it was going to go
and all the things that were going to happen, you know, fantasizing

(13:37):
when you're a kid, you then become an adult and you realize like, oh, wow.
Yeah, I don't have as much control over things as I thought.
I don't I can't make everything happen that I want.
And also things that I thought I wanted don't fulfill me
in the same way as I thought they did.
So now I got to figure out what what really will.

(13:58):
And so, you know, I think that's what we're seeing with Cody is
and Robin are two people who got very attached to how they they
and entitled of a colleague.
She she loves to use the word entitled, but she's right.
Entitled to have that dream come true.
Do you know what I mean?
But it's like, you know, that dream involved a bunch of other people.

(14:21):
So you cannot be mad that if they don't hold it,
if they don't want it to.
And so you get to have those kind of like real life conversations
with people looking back at, OK, this is what I thought life was going to look like.
And this is what life does look like, or this is how I want life to look like.
So how do I get to that point?
What was your journey to become a psychotherapist?

(14:45):
Yeah, well, I so I was and still am.
You know, I've always been somebody that has been ambitious
and going after things and doing things.
And very early on, I always loved movies and television and pop culture and media.
And so my big dream was to work in Hollywood, to be a producer, a director.

(15:07):
For a long time, I thought I wanted to be a director, you know, something like that.
And, you know, I did all the plays in high school.
I went off to college.
I was a film and TV major.
I interned like I spent my entire summer between my my junior
year and senior year of college, like working for free.
This is back when you didn't have to pay interns working full time

(15:29):
for free at Columbia Pictures for the summer, like my friends were going
to the beach and doing other things like I'm like, you know, working this job.
And and that led me to get another internship and that got me there.
So I I learned very quickly from college
that I didn't really enjoy the filmmaking process.
Like I enjoyed watching movies and talking about them, but I didn't enjoy the process.

(15:52):
So I was like, OK, I think I have to work behind this.
I have to work, you know, in an office somewhere.
And I became I happened to get a job in San Francisco.
That's where I went after college
because I was going to stay on the East Coast.
But I just missed home and miss my family.
And I'm from northern California.
So I came back here and I worked for a couple of years

(16:13):
for this woman who was a local talent agent.
And, you know, we would book local actors in San Francisco
and the surrounding areas into commercials and industrials and lots of other things.
You know, sometimes movies would come here, but the movie parts were very, very small.
You know, Nash Bridges was shot here in the late 90s.

(16:33):
Early thoughts, you know, that those were very small parts.
And, you know, it was but after a couple of years,
I was sort of this big fish in a small pond and I was 24.
And I kind of reached however I was going to get in San Francisco.
So I didn't really want to move to L.A.
I've never been a Southern California L.A. person,
but I knew it was my that if I wanted to do this, this is where I was going to go.

(16:56):
And I and I got to L.A. I got a job right away.
I worked at this midsize talent agency.
It was a huge, huge change
because, again, I was big fish, small pond, and then I was basically a no one.
And which is fine.
It's not about being seen as someone who's very, very important.
But like suddenly, you know, your opinion doesn't matter anymore.

(17:19):
Like just keep your mouth shut.
And and this was also back in the late 90s where everything was paper.
I mean, I think young people can't believe that we were people.
I never worked in the mail room,
but like photocopying scripts and faxing scripts and, you know, I mean,
all these things that you just can't even today.

(17:40):
They're like, what?
You know, I mean, we weren't we were on our computers all day, but we weren't emailing.
You know, we were constantly like typing things up and printing things out.
And, you know, that kind of thing.
And then I got a job.
I was there for almost a year.
And then I got a job working for this talent manager
who is hands down one of the kindest people in the world.
And she was she is an anomaly in Hollywood.

(18:03):
She is so kind, so nice, treats everyone wonderfully.
And she really believed in me.
She really did.
Like she really very much was like, if you want to do this,
I will help you and become a manager.
And, you know, under her wing and I was her assistant,
then I became her associate.
And then I, you know, and I was kind of starting to build up.

(18:23):
And honestly, I was only in L.A. for three years.
But. It was so significant because it was this dream.
I was there, right?
You know, but I was utterly miserable.
I know I didn't really like L.A. and I like all the driving.
I and I didn't really like the job.
It just was like this.

(18:44):
I I didn't enjoy it like I really enjoyed no part of it
when I really thought about what I enjoyed the most.
We're talking to people and helping the actors with their problems
and strategizing and thinking about like, well, how would you
if you did it this way?
And, you know, when you're dealing with actors, you know,
you kind of have to figure out different ways of saying things to them.
And so they can hear and listen.

(19:05):
And some people are like this and some people are like that.
And this is how you do this. Right.
And so I enjoyed that part of it much more
than I enjoyed the other parts, you know,
the negotiating deals or, you know, any of that kind of stuff.
So, yeah, after three years, I mean, I had essentially

(19:25):
I didn't realize it at the time that I had a quarter life crisis.
I, you know, I really just was like, I got to get out of here.
I can't do this.
And there was a series of events, you know, I left the job first.
I was just going to chill out in L.A. for a little while.
A good friend of mine, my college roommate, I learned had passed away suddenly.
And, you know, you're 27.
You don't think you're going to funerals at 27 for your friends.

(19:47):
And so that really changed things for me.
That really pushed me.
And I was like, life is short and I got to go
and I got to do the things that I want to do.
And so I came back to the Bay Area and I it was like
I asked myself that question of of, you know, of what I've been doing.
What did I really enjoy?
And I really did enjoy talking to people, helping people.

(20:08):
And I had always been told throughout my life, you're very in middle school.
I had a teacher say, you're very intuitive.
You know, you really see things.
And people would say that to me all the time.
I heard that over and over again, like very perceptive, very intuitive, very,
you know, that kind of thing.
So it just all kind of came together.
And so I was like, OK, well, I'll become, you know, I thought, OK,

(20:31):
I'll become a therapist.
And I went back to grad school and, you know, I got into it.
And, you know, and when I'm telling my clients a little bit about my own background,
I don't go into such detail with them.
But, you know, when I talk about it with them, I said, you know,
when I'm telling you the story, it may seem like this is, you know,
and then the next day and then the next day and then the next day.
Right. But it's like, no, I mean, I came back

(20:54):
to the Bay Area, I spent two, there was two years between the time
that I came back to the time that I started graduate school,
even though I had already been thinking about,
go, you know, becoming a therapist.
So that's the thing, this process, it takes time.
But it took me a little bit of time to kind of really rest on that and do the research.
And then I took a I had never even taken a psychology course.

(21:17):
I took one in high school.
So I was like, well, why don't I take like an intro to psychology course?
And I took one like at a junior college, you know, the professor was like,
who are you? Some random person here.
And I just explained the situation and he was like, OK, this makes sense now.
And yeah, I mean, it was and I and I really liked it.

(21:38):
And so I was like, OK, this is what I want to do.
And and the other thing that I'm always telling my clients is, is that
and I never when I started graduate school, I never said to myself,
well, I'll eventually become a coach.
And then what I'm going to do is combine the two.
And then I'll start this kind of podcast and then I'll start.
I'll write this book or I'll do this or I'll do that.
Like all of the things that I'm doing now have been a process

(22:01):
of, you know, me thinking about, right.
What's going to work for me? What's not going to work for me?
What do I like? What do I want to do more of?
Where am I at? That kind of thing to get to this point.
And it was it was about 12, 15 years ago.
I started a private practice in downtown San Francisco,

(22:22):
and I didn't know who was going to show up.
But it was young adults, young mainly at that time.
They were millennials.
They were primarily women who were 25, 26, 27.
And they were coming in saying, you know, I did everything right.
I did everything that I was supposed to do.
And I'm not happy.
And I didn't think this is what adulthood was, or I think I'm going

(22:44):
through a quarter life crisis or I need to have my life together by 30.
And I remember when these young people started showing up, I'm like, oh, OK.
Yeah, I remember all this, because by then I was, you know, I want to say
I was in my late 30s, early 40s.
So I was kind of like, oh, yeah, I remember this time.
And I remember how hard it was to be young and how hard it was to go

(23:04):
through your 20s and how it's such a weird time because it's so amazing.
Exciting in some ways, all these incredible things are happening.
But you're growing and changing and constantly like every day
you're going through so much of like, what am I doing with my life that it is?
And I was like, God, people don't really help people that much with this process.

(23:24):
You know, people don't really we kind of kids leave college or high school.
And it's just like, OK, bye.
You know, good luck with that. Figure that out.
And so that's that's I always say millennials happen to me.
And they came and that's I got very interested in it.
And then I started studying coaching, both life coaching
and business coaching, success coaching.
I started integrating it into the work I did as a therapist

(23:46):
because I felt like therapy was kind of limiting talk.
Therapy was there was a certain limit to how much you can just kind of circle
the drain on something.
And I felt like there needed to be something more like people wanted answers.
They wanted direction. They wanted guidance.
And so that's really what the coaching is.
Is it help, you know, sort of this framework of, you know,
therapy is very much about looking into the past and figuring out, right?

(24:09):
You're not where you are today and how the past has affected you today.
And coaching is very much about where are you today
and where do you want to go in your future?
And what do you what changes do you need to make today
in order to create the future that you want?
And what I found is combining the two allowed me to kind of toggle back and forth.
And it was very helpful for people.

(24:29):
And then I just started, you know, everything evolved from there.
I do a lot more corporate stuff now than I did before, because
for various reasons.
But, you know, I do think that there is much more people are paying
a lot more attention to mental health in the workplace than they were before.
So it's been, you know, it's been nice to be able to see organizations

(24:54):
be able to say, hey, we're willing to, you know, pay for someone to come in.
We're willing to have them talk. We're willing to get this help.
So, yeah, that's that's how I got here.
That's how I evolved to this point.
And yeah, I'm constantly kind of, you know,
people always say, oh, you you do so much.
And it's like, yeah, I do a lot of different things,

(25:16):
but they're all in the same purview of, you know, it's
it's very much about how to, you know, how to help young people,
you know, how to get young people from point A to point B.
And then, you know, on a larger picture, it's to, you know, help
whomever comes in and whoever I work with.
But yeah, it's the process of finding yourself

(25:36):
and figuring out who you are and what you want.
It's a it's an ongoing it's definitely a lifelong process,
but it's so it's the most intense when you're young.
There's this really weird thing.
Like you were saying, it's when you're a junior in high school,
you have to figure out what the rest of your life is supposed to look like.

(25:57):
You're supposed to know what your major is.
And like the biggest secret is that so many of the people walking around,
so many adults are just as confused and unsure as the kids.
Like, what am I going to do with my life?
Well, like, what does the rest of my life look like?
And it seems like it's such an unnecessary pressure
that we put on very young kids to figure out their lives when

(26:21):
when people in their 30s are still doing the same thing.
Or it creates this limiting belief in your mind
that I have to stick this one thing out.
And if I don't, well, while I'm a failure
and my life will never look how it's supposed to look.
And you just you'll you'll keep at it and be miserable.

(26:44):
Even if you have what society says, your life is supposed to look like,
like if you would have continued in your life and in L.A.
doing that and just climbing up the ranks, you could have been successful
on the outside and by all standards, like, you know, still have a family, kids
and everything is just your profession looks different.
But we spend such a large amount of our time

(27:06):
doing that, that you can be so empty.
And I imagine that industry is even more demanding.
I doubt you're you're going nine to five.
I'm sure the hours where you're operating are outside of that.
Oh, yeah, it's it's pretty relentless.
It yeah, it was it was brutal.
But that's and that's part of the whole Hollywood thing.
I mean, there's in Hollywood there.

(27:27):
Listen, I have not worked there in many, many years.
So I just want to say this was my experience.
It's probably only gotten worse.
But the thing is, well, and unfortunately, I do have clients
that still work in there and I'll hear stories from them.
I'm like, oh, God, things are not changed as much as they should have or need to.
But yeah, I mean, I think that.
What's hard about it is, is that and this is what I, you know,

(27:49):
I'm always saying to my clients is that it's very hard to make these big
sweeping choices when you're, you know, either 16, 17 or 21, 22,
you know, whatever age, if you go to college or not.
It is we are asking people to make a huge life decision
based on very little information.

(28:12):
You know what I mean?
It's it's it's a little bit like, yeah, your brain doesn't fully form until you're 25.
You know, what what did any of us know at 16, 17, like none of us?
What did I know at 22, you know, or 20 or whatever it was
when you have to pick your major?
Nothing. And that's the thing is, is that we ask.
It's almost like we put the cart before the horse kind of thing,

(28:35):
which is you have to figure out who you you know, you have to figure out
who you are, what you want, what life's all about. Right.
And how you want to live your life.
And that's a process.
And we do that by being in relationships with people,
jobs, cities, you know, groups that we join. Right.

(28:56):
We do that in a lot of different ways.
We, you know, if if you date to learn, like, what is it that I want?
You know, who am I looking for?
What's going to what's going to mesh and then eventually go from there.
So what's hard about it is, is that you are figuring all these things out
and then you're taking jobs and getting into relationships
and all of that that are helping you figure it out.

(29:18):
And then, like, based on the relationships and how that turned out
or how the job was, you then go, oh, wait a second, it's not quite like this.
It's more like this.
I, you know, I need to do more of this and less of this. Right.
And then you kind of tweak it and then you find a new job.
And you're like, OK, so how's this new job and what is this like?
Is this going to work for me? Is this not going to work for me?
You're right. You're constantly refining and refining and refining.

(29:41):
And we don't allow people to do that.
Without a lot of grief, if that makes sense, you know, we really don't.
We either tell people like, no, no, no, you don't.
You know, you should know now what this is.
And that's the thing.
Nobody knows if they're going to like a job until you're doing the job.

(30:03):
I really falsely really I enjoyed talking.
I enjoyed television and film and, you know, in Hollywood, the industry
and talking about movies and TV and all that kind of stuff.
But I I didn't you know, I really truly didn't know what it was to work
to be a producer or to be an agent or any of those things.

(30:24):
I had no idea.
And so it wasn't until I got in there and I started doing it
that I realized, like, oh, wait a second. No, no, no.
Like, this isn't this isn't who I am or this isn't what I want for myself.
But that's the problem is, is that,
you know, we tend to make this so difficult for people.

(30:45):
And part of it is, is the yeah, your livelihood,
because you're trying to figure out the work stuff.
So, yeah, your livelihood is dependent on it and and all of that.
But it seems a little bit like there's all this pressure,
pressure from parents and friends.
You see your friends, they seem to have it all together, but they don't.
But you feel like, oh, they have it together.
So they know some secret that I don't know.

(31:05):
You hear this from parents who want their kids to just get settled
and pick something already.
But the process, I mean, it's almost a little bit like.
And I've said this, like, I don't think people I really think that there's
certain decisions or things that you you have to wait till you're 30.
You know, you have to wait till your brain's fully formed
and you have to wait for, you know, like, for example,

(31:27):
like I have clients who get these pets and I'm like,
nobody should be getting a pet until you're 30.
There's really a big problem like like I got married at 30.
I'm not saying that's the exact age for it,
but I do think that you have to like wait for a certain age to get married,
wait for a certain age to buy a home like so many things like
because you're going to make a much trust me, you'll make a much better decision

(31:49):
if you're forced to wait, because that is when we have a much better sense
of who we are.
If you've been doing all this work all along,
you will have a much better sense of who you are.
It just takes time. It takes time to do that.
And that was the other part of it, too, is that so it took me
a couple of years to figure out, OK, it's therapy.
And this is what I'm going to do.

(32:09):
And I had to go to graduate school.
And then, you know, I then you have to get your hours for licensure.
And I wasn't quite sure.
So I took some time off and I did other things.
And right, like it takes it took me a while.
And then I finally got licensed.
And, you know, it's it just takes this
this evolution and just it's a journey.
It's you know, it's an evolution.

(32:29):
It's you know, now I'm I want to do more of this.
And now I want to do more of that.
And and I and I know that psychologically we have a very hard time with change.
Our brains and bodies are divine are, you know, designed for survival
and change and uncertainty is a goes against all of that.

(32:52):
And so that's why it's hard.
It's hard for other people to watch us in this uncertainty.
And it's hard for us to sit in that uncertainty.
But if you can really get comfortable in the uncertainty
for for that time period, you will be better off.
You will be you will will have made better decisions for you

(33:13):
than if you constantly try to get to that certainty point.
If that makes sense, right?
Because people don't when we don't have all the information, we fill in the blanks.
And so people are like, well, if I quit my job, what if this happens?
What what if what if what if like all that uncertainty?
And it's a little bit like, yeah, those things could happen or they could not.

(33:34):
But. You don't know.
You have to make a decision now.
So it's but that's that's the part like people.
When we make decisions, people want like,
but I want certainty on the other side of that decision.
It's like you're not going to get it.
Yeah, that's that's always an illusion that there's going to be some sort of certainty
there, even when you have picked where you're going to go like you.

(33:57):
Is there a difference between psychotherapist and therapist?
Or is that just no, no, the way it works.
So I don't have a PhD, so that's psychologist.
So people who have PhDs and CITES, they call themselves psychologists.
I think that we just we come up with psychotherapists
because when you say therapists, people are like physical therapy,
occupational therapy, right?

(34:18):
People are always a little unsure.
Like, what does that mean?
And so it's just a way of saying, no, it's mental.
It's mental health. OK.
So because, yeah, I knew there was a delineation between therapist
and psychologist, but I didn't know if there was a further
like branch between psychotherapist and therapist.
No. OK.
So like everything like counselor, therapist, psychotherapist,

(34:40):
they all sort of follow in in the category.
And that's the other part.
There's so many so many initials, so many different ways to get licensed.
And there's different licenses and each license has different rules to it.
So it's a whole thing.
I was just making sure because, yeah, it took me like 36 years
to figure out the difference between that.
And so I was like, oh, no, do I need to add something else?

(35:02):
So people are coming to you.
Not I don't want to say, well, some people have their lowest moments.
But what you keep saying, a quarter life crisis.
And I kind of want to dive into quarter life crisis a little bit.
Is that because because people, I guess, like the the more
cultural zeitgeist for a while has been midlife crisis.

(35:22):
So is it that we are experiencing this
existential big question of like, who am I?
What am I doing? How much time do I have left?
Are we experiencing that at a younger age?
Or does a quarter life crisis look different than a midlife crisis?
Yeah, I mean, a quarter life crisis does look different.
And the one thing that's funny is everyone always talks about how, oh,

(35:43):
is this a new this is a new thing?
And I'm like, oh, no, I remember back in the late 80s, 90s, like
Oprah had people that were talking about quarter life crises back then.
You know, this has been something that has been talked about.
It was kind of laughed at and made fun of by people
because this idea of, oh, you're 25.

(36:04):
Like, you know, what what what could possibly go wrong?
Like or this idea of, oh, you're 25, 26 kid.
You don't what do you know about the world and how things are?
And just almost like people sort of dismiss it as if people are,
you know, that person is just being difficult.
And and it's it's interesting because we we tend to

(36:30):
we tend to dismiss a lot of times, you know, these
the pains of young people and what's going on.
And we tend to like just just like I did.
It took me a minute to recognize it of like how hard it is to be young.
And what I always say is it's much harder to be young today
than it was when I was young.
I mean, I just I think that's one thing that older generations don't get.

(36:53):
And they've spent a lot of time ripping apart, making fun of millennials.
And I see all these articles about Gen Zers and it's like, no, no, no.
You know, this is you have no idea how much harder it is
to be a young person in the world today than it was for us 30 years ago.
So that's my side thing, because I will defend young people to the nth degree.

(37:16):
Midlife crisis is very much right.
You it's this this thing of half my life is over.
What am I doing?
And usually what it is, is someone has been married for 15, 20 years
once upon a time, you know, when you hit 40,
maybe you got married at 22, 23.
And so you're sort of at this, you know, place in your marriage.

(37:37):
And then usually people have kids and but their kids are probably getting older
and moving out of the house.
Like once upon a time, this middle age,
you know, it really was a turning point for people.
It was moving from one kind of phase of your life to another.
And and so, you know, people would many people

(37:58):
question that and wonder and ask themselves, like, what is it?
You know, who am I? What do I want?
And then obviously people write, leave marriages, get get sports cars,
do all these things to try to kind of like figure out what is it that they want.
With the quarter life crisis, I say that it's really and it's
it's not like you have to be exactly 25, just as a midlife crisis
doesn't happen exactly at, you know, everybody's midlife.

(38:21):
But what a quarter life crisis is, is it's a crisis of identity.
It's a crisis of it's very much what I went through in L.A., which is.
I'm now I'm now old enough to have been in the workforce
for a certain period of time where I have a better understanding
of what work really is, what this path that I've chosen,

(38:43):
what this is going to look like.
And you're basically having this identity crisis between, oh, well, I
I thought that if I did this and then this and then this and then this,
I would be happy, but I'm not happy.
And and, you know, what's different about it is
you it's really about the sense of self, like who you are.

(39:07):
My quarter life crisis was very much about, you know, tests who worked in Hollywood.
That's what made me feel special.
That's what made me feel unique, like, you know, that's what made,
you know, made me feel like I was enough in the world.
And that I and I had really attached myself to that identity.
And that's and again, you know, it was agony to leave,

(39:28):
to to make the decision to go because I was shutting the door on a dream.
I was shutting the door on what I thought the rest of my life would look like.
And, you know, when you close your eyes and you think about your life, right?
Like that was it.
And so it's very much about, oh, this realization of things are not going to be,
you know, my life is not going to be like how I envisioned it to be.

(39:52):
And that's OK.
It doesn't mean I failed, but it's just that life.
It never is what we think it's going to be.
And that, you know, I've got to get away from, you know, I've got to stop
attaching myself to this test who worked in Hollywood, test who's this person.
And I've got to really figure out like what is going to make me happy.

(40:12):
What's going to fulfill me?
You know, how do I want to feel every day?
So. That's you know, that's the difference,
because I think that usually with midlife crises, you know,
you've kind of made a series of decisions that you're unsure.
You know, like, I don't know about this career.
I don't know about this or that.
But with quarterlife crisis, you haven't been in, you know,

(40:33):
you haven't been out in the world long enough to to really have made these,
you know, to be in these long marriages or, you know, be in these careers.
And, you know, you're at this spot where
there's just this disconnect between
what is what is true, what is real life and who you are as a person

(40:54):
versus what you thought it was going to be or who you thought you were going to be.
Yeah, it does seem like there's like a little bit of similarity as far as
it's almost like one is more like half my life is over.
And so you're kind of contemplating
your own mortality and what are you doing and to the various

(41:17):
the very stereotypic version of it is like you're filling it
with a bunch of like consumerism to to not think about it.
And then the quarterlife crisis is
like you're almost this is, again, painting in broad strokes.
But it's like a death of its own.
It's like what life.

(41:37):
What I thought was life going to look like and then what life
actually is turning to look at what life actually is going to turn out.
If I stay on this projected path.
And so there's like this this mourning period.
And so these these young younger people are coming to you
and they're mourning.

(41:59):
What life should look like.
And so they're coming to you with a pretty big question of
like, how do I find fulfillment now?
Because what I thought was going to provide fulfillment has left me
maybe not empty, but close to it.
Pretty much staying in your your purview of finding fulfillment.

(42:20):
What does that look like? It seems to be.
I mean, I'm sure since the dawn of time, everyone's asking that question,
but more so I think in in recent history, we've been allowed the luxury
to really think about what will fulfill me in life and jobs.
And I have I have opinions about that, at least personally.

(42:43):
Like, I don't know if that's the best thing.
Because why would that be bad to have an opinion?
I don't think it's bad, but I think it can take you.
I think it can be a trapping because I was trapped in that mindset
for a while of like, what do I want to do that will be fulfilling?
Like, what do I want to do every day?
That's that's fulfilling.

(43:04):
That's impactful. That's, you know, generational, you know, just like big,
big things like that, which is fine.
Like, I'm not against that.
But, you know, look back at history.
And that's a relatively new question that you get to ask yourself within
maybe the 70s or something like that, where things kind of like chilled out.
But even in the 70s, the economy was still what it was.

(43:28):
You know, there was a really bad recession in the 70s.
So I don't know when we really started.
Well, I don't know.
I think to me, it always feels like what they call it is a navel gazing or, you know,
a lot of it's socioeconomic.
A lot of it is, do you have the privilege to wonder?

(43:48):
You know, and and that's very much what college is, right?
It's a time and it's very privileged to be able to go to college and to do that.
So, yes, I think we have been pondering these questions, you know, I'm sure.
Right. Marcus Arrhenius Aurelius, I never pronounce his last name correctly.

(44:09):
And, you know, all the stoics and all, you know,
they've been pondering these big, big questions for a long time.
But if you are right now pondering these things, consider yourself lucky.
Yes, it means you have the time to ponder it.
And and I and and there's good and bad in that. Right.
There's good and bad in all of these things.
There's and really what we're talking about is choices

(44:32):
and and choices and opportunities and and having, you know, and that's the thing.
There are some people that have a tremendous amount of choices
and there's some people that don't have that many.
And there is something about if you have too many choices, that's that's very overwhelming.
Yeah, it's you know.
Yeah, there's something about like if

(44:55):
a shop has like 20 different items for you to buy,
a lot of times people will just walk away rather than if they have one or two.
People would be like, OK, sometimes it's a decision.
The Stanford Jam experiment.
Yeah. You know, the Stanford Jam experiment.
Yeah, that's like in a nutshell.
Yeah, that was in the back of my head.
I was like, you know, reason there's jam, but I'm not going to say that.

(45:15):
Yeah. Yeah. So they set up two stations, one with something like 64 jars of jam
and another one was six.
And what they found was that people really flocked to the 64 jars of jam.
But between the two, the people who had six jars of jam
sold 30 percent of their products and the other side 64 jars.
There were three percent.
So there's a huge difference because when we have too many choices,

(45:41):
it just it overwhelms us.
So we do nothing.
We taste a bunch of jams and then we walk away.
You know. So how do you how do you help them define
what is a fulfilling life for them and how do you help them walk on that path?
So, yeah, I mean, it's always a little different depending on the person

(46:03):
and what the circumstances are, but in general, what you know, what we're really
what I'm doing with my clients is I'm having them kind of like you're
and I like the way you said that, like the the death of something it is, it's
it's the, you know, it's mourning the loss of what you thought things would be.
This is also what happens when people break up.
You know, it's really hard for people because what they it's like, yeah,

(46:27):
you're mourning your future, how you saw your future.
And when you visioned your future, you saw it with this person.
And so and that's a big deal.
But mainly I am, you know, I'm really trying to help my clients figure out
their own values, like what they believe in and how they want to live their lives.

(46:47):
I'm helping them figure out, you know, what's what makes them happy.
Like, what what do you enjoy?
And I and I really I say happiness, but really, when I'm asking is
what is meaningful to you, what's engaging to you?
Because happiness is fleeting, passion is fleeting.
These are fleeting feelings that come and go, but meaning will stay with you.

(47:10):
Engagement will stay with you.
So I love what I do, but do I get up every single day full of passion?
No, I have bad days and good days and I have days where I'm like,
I need a break or I, you know, I want something, you know, I fantasize
about opening a flower shop like I have my own days, right, of of having these.

(47:33):
Moments of wanting to, you know, pick another choice.
But the thing is, is that for the most part, that meaning, that engagement
that I have with this work is the thing that sustains me, that keeps me going.
And that's what's going on.
The thing that sustains me, that keeps me going.
And that's what's going to sustain other people as well.
You have to have you have to feel like you're getting up for a reason.

(47:58):
You have to feel like you're getting up and doing something
and that the work that you're doing does, you know, make some kind of impact
or, you know, the way you feel doing it.
And so the other thing that I'm helping people do is
because so much of of this of what we're talking about,
it's it's about how we feel about things.
So it's a thought becomes right.

(48:18):
The thought first and then the feeling.
And so you when I think about when you think about career stuff,
you want to think about not like I want to be a lawyer
because lawyers make two hundred thousand dollars a year.
It's like I want to be a lawyer because I really enjoy writing
and I really enjoy, you know, the legal system or I really enjoy.

(48:41):
Because I'm arguing, I really enjoy, you know, putting together a brief.
I really. Right.
That's what you have to think about.
Like, what are you going to be doing every single day?
And and we spend way too much time focusing on,
you know, the title that we want and the salary that we want.
And it's like those things are important. Yes. But

(49:06):
the thing is, is that we also write.
It's very much like what you do.
If I did not enjoy talking to people, my job would be awful.
I genuinely enjoy what I do every day,
because I genuinely enjoy meeting people, talking to people, working with people.
But, you know, I also enjoy writing, I also enjoy other things.

(49:27):
So I've created and structured my life in a way
where it works for me and it works for my personality
and things that I enjoy and how I want to live my life.
That's the other one, too, is I work for myself.
And that's that's a that's a, you know, it's not easy working for yourself.
No one's paying you on your days off.
No one's, you know, you're not getting the bonus.

(49:50):
You're giving out bonuses.
Like, but but you but I'm able to create the life that I want.
I have a lot of control over my days and what they look like.
I get to not work on a Tuesday, but work on a Sunday or not work either day
or work both days like I like.
And that's what works for me.
And so that's that's really what I'm trying to help people figure out.

(50:13):
And so it's a lot of like, if you if you can't answer those questions,
a lot of it is about exploration, like going out and like, OK, go out
and really figure out like, what do you enjoy?
What don't you enjoy and start to get in touch with?
Huh, what is this like?
Because we live, you know, we don't live in the present.
We live in the past or we live in the future.

(50:33):
We're constantly the would have, could have, should have the past,
which is, you know, connected to depression.
And then the oh, my God, what ifs of the future, which is connected to anxiety.
But we never really stop and think like
when I am doing this thing right here, how do I feel?
Do I enjoy it?
You know, is it neutral?
Because there's lots of things that are just like, I take it or leave it.

(50:57):
And that's really what you want to do.
You want to when you think about a career, you want a career
that is going to be hopefully 70 percent of the time doing things
that you really that you enjoy doing and that you're good at.
And and that that it's structured, whether you're working for yourself
or working for a company or however you're working, hybrid, remote, right, whatever.

(51:19):
That is what works for you and where you are in your life right now.
That's where we get the most satisfaction from.
And so it depends on the person.
Some people are very self aware when they come in
and they really do understand that and other people not so much like
they really have to get back to the basics of that.
And that's and sometimes I mean, a lot of times the basics really are

(51:41):
like helping people maybe start some kind of mindfulness practice
or meditation practice so that they can start learning how to recognize a thought
and let the thought go, not to don't judge it, don't act on it,
but just focus on, OK, let the thought go.
And now you're here back in the present moment and you feel the wind on your face.
And like just simple things like that, just being

(52:05):
being mindful and being present, like that's something that a lot of young people
because they've grown up with phones and
Internet and technology and all this stuff that that it's very hard for them to find.
But listen, people my age also, we struggle with it as well.
Yeah, I think that's a cultural thing, too, because
at least American culture is very future oriented.

(52:26):
So we're constantly looking in the future.
And you said something very interesting about if we're in the past,
it can lead to depression, if we're in the future, it can lead to anxiety.
It's, you know, wrestling with those feelings of I wish I could have or I need to.
And that presents, you know, sometimes just it can lead you overwhelmed

(52:46):
and feeling stuck to where you're just eating those feelings.
And so people are coming to you and they're they're trying
they're looking for a different future.
But there's things that they have to do now in the present to get that future.
So how do people balance living presently,

(53:07):
but striving for those goals?
Yeah. And that comes up a lot when it comes to I'm thinking of
are you thinking of the person who maybe knows that they want to,
you know, they want to go on a different career path.
But you kind of have to like but you need to make a living.
So you need to stay at this job until you can make this transition.
So then how do you is that what drives it?

(53:28):
Like, how do you stay?
You know, how do you enjoy your life even though you know you're not in the right place?
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, and that part's hard.
And I think a lot of times what I'll tell people is, yeah, I mean, you know,
there are times where we're not loving what we're doing.
And, you know, so that to me, that's very much about
how we speak to ourselves about things.

(53:51):
And what I say is, is that you've got to see it as temporary.
Like, you're not going to be at this job for the rest of your life.
And you also have to like, what's your attitude about it?
Like, if you're walking into your office every day going,
this place sucks, I hate everybody, I can't wait to get out of here.
It's not going to be good.
Like, you really have to, you know, we we have

(54:14):
we are responsible for ourselves and we are responsible for how we show up
in the world, how we show up with other people.
And just because you're not happy at this job doesn't mean that you
you have the right to go and ruin it for everybody else.
But also, it's it's it's going to be it's going to make you more miserable
and make you feel like you don't have any control if you make it miserable for yourself.

(54:37):
So it's not about lying to yourself, but it's really about like, what's my mindset?
What's the mindset that I'm in?
And so part of it is this is temporary.
This is not the rest of my life.
They're like focusing on the things about the job that you enjoy,
even if it's like lunchtime or where you go to lunch,
you know, learning how to not take the things that your boss does or says
personally, learning how to detach, learning, right?

(54:59):
That all of those things are things that you absolutely can be working on and doing
while you're making this transition.
But yeah, I mean, they're not every phase of our lives.
Are we going to be doing exactly what we want to be doing?
But that's the challenge for us as people.

(55:20):
You know, how how how are you then going to handle that?
How are you going to approach that?
Are you going to make everybody miserable and yourself?
Or are you going to, you know, figure out how do I do this so that I'm not miserable?
Because we you know, that's a thing, right?
The one thing that we have complete control over are our thoughts.

(55:41):
And, you know, that's the thing.
We, you know, our thoughts, we have complete control over.
And I don't know if you ever read a book called Man's Search for Meaning.
So Victor Frankl, a great book.
Victor Frankl was from German.

(56:02):
Well, he basically he was in a concentration camp for four and a half years.
And he wrote a book after he got out.
He was a neuroscientist and, you know, already like a psychiatrist.
He was already working in mental health and all of that.
And he talked and in the book, he talks about his experience.
Like, you know, whole family was killed.
They took his manuscript and threw it away.

(56:23):
You know, four and a half years of being in this concentration camp, actually.
And what he talked a lot about is like, it's even more cruel
because you don't know when it's going to end like, you know, every day it could end.
And he talks a lot about how he survived it.
And what he talked about is he was able to survive it
because he decided to make meaning from this.
He decided to he decided he started counseling people

(56:46):
at the camp like he became the resident psychiatrist for people.
And he, you know, had, you know, he started finding little pieces of paper
anywhere he could go and start working on his manuscript again.
And, you know, he decided to take this awful experience,
this injustice and turn it into something.
And so that's the thing.

(57:06):
And then we also write, we have people who have everything,
absolutely everything, and they are miserable.
And so it's got nothing to do.
Like someone's level of happiness and like all of those things.
It's got nothing, nothing to do with all of these other things
that we're talking about, like with the the outside things.

(57:29):
If you are calm, if you are in control, if you feel good inside your mind,
if the thoughts that are swirling in your mind are good, happy, healthy thoughts,
that is the greatest thing you can have.
That's freedom.
That's real freedom.
Yeah, there's there's people who are are definitely their mental fortitude.

(57:51):
I am envious of them because that takes a specific kind of person
to reframe their their their reality in that way, because it's so.
It's so simple and almost encouraged,
especially in modern times, to look at how the world has hurt you
and say there's nothing that you can do.

(58:13):
The world is out to get you.
You're a victim.
That's all you'll ever be.
And it's you.
It's really disempowering.
Disempowering.
And I don't really know
why that narrative has has gained in popularity recently,

(58:33):
because it's like you said, it disenfranchises you
and you don't even realize it because like you think you're a victim.
It's like, OK, this happened to me.
And now it just happened to me.
It's it's reframing.
Like, let's say someone has been trafficked, sexually trafficked,
human trafficking, they don't call them victims.

(58:56):
They call them survivors.
It's it's the reframing of it because no, you're not a victim.
You were someone like victimized.
You took advantage of you.
But that's not where you're living.
That's not where you're staying.
That's not your identity.
Your identity is you're on the other side of that now.
And so you're surviving it.

(59:16):
So building this this mental fortitude.
So I'm definitely.
Like I said, envious and jealous of the people who can do that,
because I do have the sit.
I have the tendency to like kind of like sit and like,
oh, if only this would happen or something like that, you know, so it is.
It's really powerful when you realize like you get to.

(59:39):
I mean, you don't get to be delusional, but you get to reshape reality
and construct it and move forward from a stronger base.
It's so like learning that about yourself and not just
like there's some like stoicism in it,
but like just the power of reframing and you can control what you can control.
And yeah, so I just I love hearing about that kind of. Yeah.

(01:00:04):
I feel the resilience.
And which is great.
And I think that that we tend people tend to lean to one direction or another.
Right. People either really lean into the victimhood
or they really lean into this very like, you know, stoic bootstrap, you know.
And that's the thing.
I always say that that the drill stars in isn't going to motivate you.
That voice in your head, it's like, get out of bed, lazy person.

(01:00:26):
You know, like yelling at yourself like that doesn't motivate us.
That doesn't get us excited.
So so much of this is about learning how to, you know, balance all these thoughts
in your mind so that you can be compassionate with yourself.
You can see yourself as human.
And that sometimes we get we are in situations that aren't fair that happen
and that we do have the right to feel crappy about it and that it's OK

(01:00:48):
to feel whatever you feel about it.
And but then the key is, OK, so then once I'm done feeling crappy,
like then how do I how do I shift?
How do I shift and think about this, you know, differently?
And, you know, it's I think that we also are all born with certain temperaments.

(01:01:10):
So I think it's harder for certain temperaments.
I tend to be much more optimistic.
I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt.
I tend to write.
And I think that that has served me in a lot of ways.
And then it's also hurt me in other ways.
And there's certain my sister is an attorney.
And so and she's very white, like pessimistic and skewed the other way.

(01:01:33):
And so when you hear us talk, like somewhere in between,
we finally get to the right answer.
But the thing is with her, but she she's since she's an attorney,
attorneys are trained to look for the problems, to look for things
that could possibly go wrong.
And that's the other part, too, is it's hard.
Like sometimes we have these jobs that train us to think in certain ways.

(01:01:55):
And then it's a lot to ask them to now turn around and switch all that off.
And and now, you know, think about things this way.
But Man's Search for Meaning, it's a great book.
Victor Frankel, he he then developed a whole sort of therapy
that he created called existential therapy.
And, you know, it's one of those things where even when things are hard,

(01:02:18):
I just think about him in that book.
And I think, you know what, if he could make it through that,
I can make it through this.
You know, if he can do this.
And I do think that there is something to be said for,
you know, having hard things happen to you.
You know, I think everyone always wants these easy lives.
And it's a little bit like, well, first off, you're never going to get it.

(01:02:39):
No one's no one's life is going to be, you know, just paved for them.
But the other part of it, too, is, is that that, you know,
when you go through hard things, it builds resilience.
It builds that inside of you that you and when you have to then face
other hard things, it does give you a tremendous amount of perspective
about how hard is this thing or not.

(01:03:00):
And so, you know, again, it's it's being able to take the things
that happen in your life and be able to look at them
in a way where you're not discounting how you really felt about it,
that you're honoring your feelings and accepting them,
but also realizing, right, like I can either see that
this is happening to me or for me.

(01:03:21):
So which way do I go?
Yeah, just just that that choice and knowledge.
I can really open up some some past that you didn't even know were there
or that you wouldn't let yourself see that were almost blatant.
But you're just like, oh, I don't I don't see it.
Well, and that's the good thing about working with young people

(01:03:42):
and being young, that's hard, is there's that Steve Jobs quote,
like, you know, you cannot connect the dots of your life looking forward.
You can only do it looking backward.
So I can vary.
You know, I'm 51. I'll be 52 this year.
So it's like I can vary easily because I have had a lot of years.
I can look behind me and see all the different ways in which like, you know,

(01:04:02):
if that hadn't happened here, then this wouldn't have happened here.
And if I hadn't, you know, if I hadn't if this thing hadn't fallen through
or this person rejected me or whatever it is, then I would have never been here.
And this is a much better place for me here.
And so when you're young and you're trying to make a lot of these decisions,
it is, you know, it's hard to see how how am I going to connect the dots of my life?

(01:04:24):
But I do believe that every single thing that we do
has some sort of purpose or reason for why we're doing it.
We just don't know what it is yet. We just don't.
And so but it's but that's a reframe.
How do I think about my things, not as a waste of time,
but as an opportunity for growth or an opportunity

(01:04:45):
to learn something that will help me in the future?
Yeah. And so one of the things that you're saying is
this is early on in the conversation, you're talking about how
the this younger generation has a lot of challenges
growing up. And one of those challenges,

(01:05:06):
it kind of breaks generations.
It's it's social media and it's the
the pseudo professionals that are just pervasive
on any social media network.
Everyone is claiming they're a professional.
You got to listen to me.
Like, are you are you having a bad day?
Well, this is how you fix it.
And it's usually so rigid, that thinking.

(01:05:28):
And so how do we as as laypeople, if we're scrolling,
looking on social media and we come across, you know,
someone who's claiming to be a therapist or something like that,
how do we protect ourselves from being sucked into some sort of pseudo
doctrine that ends up being more harmful than helpful?
Because, you know, the truth is, they just made it up.

(01:05:51):
Yeah. I mean, and I think that part's hard.
Listen, I I have social media channels.
I get on there and talk about things that are, you know,
that I find interesting and want to talk about.
So, you know, I can't exactly criticize anybody for doing that.
I will say and this is what I say to people all the time,
which is you really like social media should not be your place for therapy.

(01:06:14):
It shouldn't. If you are struggling with them, that it should not be what it is.
And I do completely understand that.
So, you know, therapy is expensive and I'm one of those therapists.
I don't take insurance like, you know, it's hard.
I really get that that it is financially prohibitive for people.
So they feel like they have to go to social media.
But I think that what what I would say is, is that, you know,

(01:06:38):
if you're really struggling with something, you've got it.
You need to figure out how to get free therapy.
There are low fee places to go like you go and do that.
Please do that.
Social media and going on social media should be much more for things
to kind of enlighten you, like open up your mind a little bit,
like to something new or make a connection or to be able to hear

(01:06:59):
something that you really needed to hear in that moment.
But I always say that, you know, you
therapists, coaches, all of us, we are, you know, we are not gurus.
We are not we are not any, you know, we should not be your gurus.
You should not be listening to everything that I say
because you and only you have to live your life.

(01:07:20):
And if someone wants to be your guru, run, just run.
Because the thing is, is that that's not right.
Just listening to one person and one way of doing things.
It's like, no, that's not how we grow as people.
That's not how we develop.
And there is no one person that knows exactly what you need.

(01:07:41):
Actually, the one person that knows exactly what you need is you.
And that's what you need to figure out.
You know, so that's your job.
I mean, I think that certainly I always tell people like,
look at the credentials, look up, you know, look them up, see what's going on.
I did. It was funny because I had someone who they reached out to me.
I don't know. You know, they reached out to me.

(01:08:03):
I think they saw me on social media and they found my website
and like went into my website and like wrote me a message about someone was like,
you're a liar. You said you're a therapist, but you're not a therapist.
Ba ba ba.
And what I have to laugh about is actually, technically,
if you go to the state of California and type in my name in the BBS,
there is no Tess Brigham is not licensed because my full legal name is Elizabeth

(01:08:25):
Tess Brigham, and I've always gone by my middle name.
So I just have to laugh sometimes because I do tell people like,
look at the credentials.
But sometimes you might find that you have a situation like me where,
you know, I anything that's
I just have to legally, I mean, this is what's on my license.
So I had to be licensed as Elizabeth Tess Brigham.

(01:08:45):
But, you know, people know me professionally as Tess Brigham.
So that's the thing.
But look it up, look people up, see, you know, see if they are legit.
And then I think you just want to be thoughtful about what they're saying.
You know, do you agree with it? Do you not agree with it?
Do you think that that would be helpful?
You know, these are all just suggestions that people are giving.

(01:09:06):
There isn't one right or wrong way.
And that's the other part about wellness and this wellness industry
that's really hard is is that there are just too many opinions.
Everybody's got opinion and everybody's sharing it now.
And there's too there are too many voices in the world right now.
That's been the biggest issue with social media is that there's too many opinions.
There's too many.

(01:09:28):
And and so part of our job is to each of us individually is figure out
which ones am I going to listen to and how do I take all of this in
and then make a choice and decision or, you know, change a thought or mindset
based on what I feel like is right for me, what's going to work for me.
And that's the part that's hard is people want they want to play by play.

(01:09:51):
You know, everyone's always like,
I just want you to tell me what to do to fix myself.
And it's like, no, I can't because I don't I don't I'm not inside of you.
I don't know you. I don't I'm not you.
You can answer that question, but I can't.
So anyone who can tell you I'm going to tell anybody who says to you,
I know exactly how to help you or I know exactly what to do or I be my guru

(01:10:13):
or listen to me or only listen to me run.
But, you know, there's lots of people out there.
And I have certain feelings about some of these other people that there are.
There are lots of people that have, you know, degrees and experience.
And then there's other people who kind of, you know, their coaches.
And and some of them are starting to be found out a little bit of like, oh, wow.

(01:10:36):
You said you did this thing for this many years, but actually, really,
you only did it for this many years.
And so there are a lot of like pseudo life coaches and coaches out there.
That are just, you know,
they're just regurgitating things from other people.
So it isn't necessarily bad.
You know, I mean, their facts are correct

(01:10:58):
because they took it from the research of this person over here.
And yeah, I take a lot of my stuff from people all over the place.
But, you know, my argument with that is always like, you know,
you really want to look at how did this person arrive at these opinions or thoughts
or where they're at.
Like, I have spent the last, you know, I've been working with people for 20 years.

(01:11:20):
I've spent the last, you know, 12, 14.
I can't even remember now years working with young people.
And what I say is,
yes, I am taking things from studies and other things that people have said.
But my opinions and what I what I wrote in my book,
all of those things are hands like this is all based on me sitting across
from young person after young person after like thousands and thousands of hours.

(01:11:44):
Of doing that.
And I do think that there is a big difference between someone
who has done that kind of work versus someone who's like
spent, you know, spent a year at a coaching program,
coached a few people, and now is regurgitating other people's work.
Yeah, because it's like like that's what's cool about humanity,
is that pretty much all the information we have is taken from someone else

(01:12:08):
and then filtered through you, and then you get to present new information
or put on top of that.
But I mean, it would be impossible if every generation
we had to start over and build up the foundation.
So it's like going through the right channels.
It's just there's just so many people.
There's so many snake oil salesmen because.

(01:12:32):
I mean, what you intimately know with your profession
is that people are looking for the answers
and there's charismatic people who claim to have the answers
that can just take you in and really just
ring you dry of, you know, sometimes

(01:12:54):
just money, but sometimes it's your sense of self, too.
And you get spit out on the other side of it and you don't even know who you are.
And you were really just a like a resource for them.
And so social media is really it's just so great.
It's a tool, but it's so dangerous at the same time.
And so it's just how do we navigate that?
And I tell my wife a lot that I'm just so happy

(01:13:17):
that I didn't have to grow up in this day and age during TikTok and social media.
I was like, I'm I'm an idiot now.
And I was way dumber when I when I was a kid,
way more influenceable, way more eager to do something silly.
Like I was like, I don't think I would have survived the Tidepot challenge.

(01:13:38):
And for people that don't know, the Tidepot challenge is when kids literally
the Tide Pods that you buy at the grocery store, eat the Tide Pods
because they look like candy.
And some some people didn't make it out on the other side of that.
I'm like, that would have been me.
Like, I'm so lucky.
And so just it's great to have someone like you who is,

(01:14:00):
you know, classically credentialed, which is important.
But also what you've said, like you've done
and you sought out other education.
You you have life experience to back this up as well.
Like this is not just one single philosophy.
You've you've built up your own.
You have a bunch of of of history and knowledge to move forward from.

(01:14:22):
And so if someone is out there and they're just claiming, you know, they're
not that age means that you're wise or anything.
Some people are wise beyond their years.
But, you know, if they are in their early 20s or something like that
and they say they've got it all figured out, if everyone would just live life
by me, maybe be a little bit, don't spend as much time on their page

(01:14:44):
and take everything that they say is gospel.
Yeah, I think that's the most important piece is how does the person
present themselves and are they tell if they are if they are telling you.
Just listen to me or I have all the answers.
Anybody write that is a that's a

(01:15:04):
want, want, want.
But, you know, for example, someone like Tony Robbins,
you know, a lot of what Tony Robbins does, because I've read some of his books,
is based on this guy named David Burns, who is very famous at Stanford.
He's got groupies like, but he is one of the original.
He's a big cognitive behavioral person, and he has been writing books.

(01:15:25):
Feeling feeling good is like a book that's been around forever.
And so that's the other part of it, too, is like, oh, Tony Robbins
just took like all of his stuff and he just packaged it in his own way.
But here's the thing.
If you've got David Burns and Tony Robbins in front of you
and you can hear it from Tony Robbins and you like him
and you like his personality and that works for you, that's great.

(01:15:46):
You've got the information.
That's the other part of it, too, is is that I don't think, you know, well,
I, you know, I wouldn't do it.
I don't I'm not very comfortable with just regurgitating
someone else's information.
But even if that's what you're doing, if it's rooted in,
you know, if it's rooted in something that's real and true.

(01:16:06):
And and that's the other part of it, too, is that when I talk to people
about finding therapists, so much about finding a therapist
is about connecting with that person.
It kind of doesn't matter if the person has 10 years, 15,
20 years of experience or if they're from here or here or here.
Do you can you hear it from that person?

(01:16:27):
Can you hear it from them?
And and that's that's a big part.
Like people, I, you know, people tell people stuff all the time.
And it usually, you know, it's it takes a certain person
to then hear it from them, if that makes sense.
So that's the other part, too, is like these people, they're not necessarily bad.
It's just a bit of, you know, we have to figure out

(01:16:49):
who are the people that we're going to follow, who do we connect with,
who do we align with and then take in what they have to say
and toss out the rest that doesn't work for you.
It's the best way to describe, you know, what I tell people.
But don't go on when you're feeling low and down, don't go on social media.
The worst thing that you can do if you're feeling low, if you're feeling down,
if you're like, what am I doing with my life?

(01:17:10):
Is to go on social media and start searching for that.
Just stop like go, go seek help or
journal or read or start a mindfulness practice or something like that.
That would that's going to be so much better than the rest of it.
Yeah. Yeah, that's great.
It's very smart.

(01:17:32):
But yeah, thanks so much, Tess.
This has been such a fun conversation.
And I really appreciate all the insight that you have.
And so if people wanted to get in contact with you, find out more about you,
where can they go and do that?
Yeah, you can find me on my website.
It's just my name, Tess Brigham, B-R-I-G-H-A-M, TessBrigham.com.
And on there, you'll you know, I have pretty much everything that I do.

(01:17:57):
I wrote a book called True You, A Step by Step Guide
to Conquering Your Quarter Life Crisis, and it's on.
If you go to Amazon, you can find it there.
And, you know, it's a very it's it's the stories of the clients
that I've been working with.
It's partially my story and my my Hollywood story and and some stories
from my own life, but it's it's a combination of my stories.

(01:18:21):
My client stories and there are these six core things
that all young people sort of have to figure out that I've found.
And so I go through all of them.
And at the end of each chapter, I give you an exercise to do that.
Well, like if you want to learn how to, you know, be more mindful,
this is what you do if you want to learn how to make decisions
that align with your values.
Here's the exercise.

(01:18:41):
So I have that. And yeah, and I have another I have a podcast
called Psych Legal Pop.
I do with my sister where we talk about popular culture
through the lens of an attorney and a therapist.
And you can go check that out.
And yeah, and I actually have my own podcast.
I am doing my own podcast. It's going to start soon.
It's called The Gen Mess with Tess, where, you know, my my you know,

(01:19:02):
the whole thing is I am talking to people of various ages
and different professions and all different kinds of people
about this mess of the generations in the workforce.
And how do we fix it? That's great.
Yeah, stay tuned for that.
Yeah, I definitely will.
Thank you so much, Tess. This has been so much fun.
You're welcome. Thanks.
I've been using Bifocals by Peek-A-Boo Eyewear for a few weeks now.

(01:19:50):
I haven't noticed a dramatic difference in my vision yet.
My doctors tell me that once my brain has time to heal from all the damage
accumulated over the years from running into objects and the falls,
I will be able to tell a difference.
What I did notice, though, and quite immediately,
is that people stopped mocking me on the streets.

(01:20:12):
Prior to using Peek-A-Boo's Bifocals, I was using a monocle.
I came into the possession of this monocle after I won it
in a game of poker from a gent down on his luck.
However, when I would try to use it, people would mock me
and call me a railroad tycoon or, worst of all,
the mascot from the Monopoly game, Rich Uncle Pennybags.

(01:20:36):
I have yet to confirm if Bifocals can fix my vision,
but I have seen that they have fixed my hurt feelings,
as the instances of public shamings have gone down to almost zero.
With the help of Bifocals, all that's left for me to see
is if what my mom said to me all of my childhood growing up is true.
Do I really have a face for radio or not?

(01:20:59):
Thanks, Peek-A-Boo Eyewear.
Peekaboo, Eye see you.

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13 - Successful but Unfulfilled: Getting to the Other Side of a Quarter-Life Crisis with Tess Brigham

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